Standing Committee E

[Mr. Peter Pike in the Chair]

Housing Bill

Ordered, 
 That the Programme Order of 20 January be amended— 
 (a) leaving out the entry beginning ''Clauses 147 to 154'' in the first column and the related entry in the second column, and the entry beginning ''Clauses 170 to 190'' in the first column and the related entry in the second column, and 
 (b) inserting— 
 ''Clauses 147 to 154, Clauses 158 to 164, Clause 146, Clauses 155 to 157, Clauses 165 to 169, Schedule 8, new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 6, Clauses 170 to 190, Clauses 196 to 199, Schedule 10, Clause 200, Schedule 11, Clauses 201 to 204 and New Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 7 
 11.25 a.m. on Tuesday 24th February.''—[Keith Hill.]

Clause 88 - Special interim management orders

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

John Hayes: I shall speak briefly about the clause because we had a longish debate before lunch on the amendment that would have extended the scope of the clause to buildings that were separate and isolated, but specified as being associated with a house that might be licensed. Because, for a moment, I was persuaded that there may be substance to the arguments advanced by Government Members, I took legal and other advice from others during lunch—[Laughter.] I met two local authority leaders, a major developer and have a discussed the matter with, among others, a chief executive of a housing association. You see, Mr. Pike, what elevated circles I move in, although I am not absolutely sure that the fare that I enjoyed was of the standard that one might expect in such circles.
 The advice that I received was that it would be unlikely, first, that the local authority could locate a property of the type that I was describing, which might be isolated and separate from the main house, but part of the same business purpose. Local authorities already have considerable difficulties identifying such operations. Secondly, in the Bill, clause 88, ''enjoyed'' is used to mean ''associated with'' . . . I guess that that does not mean to take pleasure from, but to have use of. The word ''enjoyed'' would be a fairly slight premise on which to pursue a legal case in respect of a building which, as my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) said, might be on a separate parcel of land, but on the estate of a landlord who was engaged in the business of renting to vulnerable people, for example. 
 I have yet to be convinced that the case made by the Minister for Housing and Planning is correct. It should be remembered that he said specifically that outhouses and glasshouses that were not attached to or in the garden of a property, but had some association with it, would be covered. I am not sure that that is true. If outbuildings on a farm—barns, for example—were being used inappropriately to house people, I am not sure that the Bill as it stands would be sufficiently robust to allow a local authority to take action. Given the reticence of local authorities to exercise new powers in anything like the permissive way that was referred to in an earlier debate, it is essential that the Minister takes away the proposal and considers it again. 
 I have been less brief than I had intended, but I wanted to emphasise to the Minister that we may return to this matter. I am convinced that the Bill might contain a genuine loophole and open up an area of practice that the Minister, his colleagues and Opposition Members do not want to permit or encourage. I just wanted to update hon. Members on the exciting and informative discussions that I have had since we met previously. 
 Question put and agreed to. 
 Clause 88, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. 
 The Chairman: Before I call the next amendment, I point out that there are a number of new papers on the table, which I am sure hon. Members want to study. In addition, if there are Divisions in the House, I shall suspend the Committee for 15 minutes each time. I do not know whether Divisions are likely—we will see how things progress.

Clause 89 - The health and safety condition

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 318, in
clause 89, page 60, line 41, leave out 'threat' and insert
'written termination of a tenancy agreement where its perceived intention is'.
 Although I am too metaphysical to be a logical positivist, the principle of verifiability is important in respect of the words used in clause 89. My amendment would change those words: specifically, it would remove the word ''threat''. That is not because I have any lack of sympathy for tenants of unscrupulous landlords who might find themselves in a difficult position—far from it—but because the balance, for which I have previously sought to make a case, between the proper entitlements of tenants and of landlords needs to be struck carefully. 
 What constitutes a threat is important. In the event of a disagreement between a landlord and a tenant and the deterioration of their relationship, the definition of a threat in its most extreme form might regularly—perhaps invariably—count against the landlord. Threat is a word that can be used at many levels. We might say, ''It is threatening to rain,'' but that is different from saying, ''I was threatened by two roughnecks when I was journeying through 
 Streatham.'' The two uses of the word are different in degree. The use of the word ''threat'' in the Bill is open to an interpretation that would almost always count against landlords. 
 I had some discussions—not this lunchtime, I hasten to add; even I cannot squeeze that many meetings into one short break—to help me think about this clause.

Matthew Green: Were they with a large developer?

John Hayes: I wonder whether the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) is going to tell us about his lunch.
 I have had discussions with the National Landlords Association, whose comments I shall pass on to the Committee. Understandably, the association asserts that 
''a landlord has every right under the 'no ground' possession rule to give notice to a tenant if he so wishes. It is perfectly reasonable for a landlord to give notice to a tenant if he does not wish to have his premises licensed or used in a manner that would require them to be so licensed.'' 
It goes on: 
 ''Sub-paragraph (3) of Clause 89 appears to be making it an offence for a landlord to seek eviction or threaten to seek eviction in such circumstances. A landlord must not have his rights of possession taken away;'' 
 ''be prosecuted if he chooses not to have his property licensed and seeks to ensure that, by reducing the number of people occupying it, it is not required to be licensed.'' 
Essentially, the landlords are saying that the use of the word ''threat'' may imply a reduction in a landlord's proper rights to deal with tenants as I have described. Our amended wording would re-strike the balance—somewhat in favour of landlords, I agree, but in a way that is helpful to the purpose of the clause. 
 I am not fixed on our amended wording; the amendment is designed simply to probe and encourage discussion. I know, as the Committee can tell from what I have said, that landlords are concerned about this. Being ''threatened with eviction'' is a term widely used, and may not necessarily imply that the landlord has acted improperly in any way. Being ''threatened with violence'' may also be a term widely used, but it has a very different meaning. The amendment would be helpful, and I hope that the Minister accepts it in that spirit.

Matthew Green: I had a very light lunch, but since I have been challenged by the Conservative spokesman, I should add that I spent my time talking to some young people from Shropshire visiting Westminster today.
 I was going to launch into a criticism of the amendment but I thought I should be more charitable. He has done a reasonable turn for the Committee by raising what ''threat'' means. However, were we to accept his wording, a large number of serious threats would not be covered—for instance, when a landlord says to a tenant, ''If you do not do X, Y, or Z I will beat you up and throw you out.'' All sorts of things would not be covered. I can think of many landlords who 
 have probably never written down anything in their lives, even though they legally should. I therefore hope that the Minister will not be moved to accept the Conservative amendment. 
 However, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings was right to seek clarification of the meaning of ''threat''. A threat could be used to deal with antisocial behaviour: for example, if tenants are being antisocial, the landlord could say, ''I am going to throw you out unless you sort yourselves out.'' If that is a threat, it might a helpful one in the circumstances. We need some clarification from the Minister of precisely what is intended.

John Hayes: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's support. That is precisely why I said that ''threat'' does not necessarily imply that the landlord behaved improperly in any way. I take his point about the imperfection of the wording of my amendment. Perhaps the word ''threat'' is not a helpful one at all, given the difficulty of interpretation, which he has articulated.

Matthew Green: It may well depend on what the Minister says, but we need clarification on the record of what the Government perceive ''threat'' to mean. Obviously, that will be taken as the interpretation, should a case go before a tribunal. I hope that the Minister will provide clarification. I could not possibly support the Conservative amendment if they were to force it to a vote, as they did with the previous amendment—I never believed that they would do it. However, I welcome the fact that through the amendment, we will be able to elicit some response from the Government on the meaning of the word ''threat''.

Sydney Chapman: I am always hesitant to intervene between lunch and the bow-tie dinner of my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings. I hope that his dinner engagement will not cause him to leave this Committee before 6.55 p.m.
 Yet again, I am very ready to support my hon. Friend, subject to what the Minister says. As I understand the law, any threat is an empty threat in this area of the law unless the landlord serves on the tenant a written termination of a tenancy agreement. He can threaten to do so, but it is an empty threat unless he actually does so; and he has to do so if he wants to remove the tenant from the premises. Subject to what the Minister said, for the second time running, my hon. Friend has got his eye entirely on the ball.

Keith Hill: Clause 89 sets out the health and safety condition referred to in clause 87: the condition that an interim management order is needed to protect the health, safety or welfare of the occupiers of the house or persons occupying or owning property in its vicinity. The condition is particularly important where antisocial behaviour relating to a particular property affects the quality of life in an area. Clause 89(4), (5) and (6) provides that the exception to this condition is where the local housing authority takes appropriate
 alternative steps, such as action under part 1, that will protect the occupier's health, safely and welfare. Subsection (3) provides that the threat of eviction to avoid the licensing requirements under part 2 may constitute a threat to the welfare of the occupiers. The Government intend that provision to prevent landlords of HMOs evicting tenants wholesale to avoid licensing. It has that precise purpose.
 The line of questioning pursued by the hon. Member for Ludlow was about the extent to which a threat of eviction could be construed as impinging on the health and safety of occupants. He will be interested to know that there is case law relating to provisions in the Housing Act 1985. In a case involving the London borough of Southwark, there was a threat to close a hostel and evict its residents. A judicial review found that Southwark was right to take into account the impact that the threat had on residents' welfare. I hope that that helps towards a broader understanding of the issue. 
 In moving amendment No. 318, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings made slighting reference to my constituency. I should tell him that we prefer our area to be called ''St. Reatham''; we are trying to go upmarket in Streatham. 
 Amendment No. 318 would amend clause 89(3), which begins: 
 ''A threat to evict persons occupying a house . . . to avoid . . . being . . . licensed''. 
Under the hon. Gentleman's amendment, it would read: 
 ''A written termination of a tenancy agreement where its . . . intention is to evict persons occupying a house . . . to avoid'' 
being licensed. The amendment would replace a threat of eviction with a written notice that, when brought into effect, would result in an eviction; however, there would also have to be an intention to evict in order to avoid being licensed. A threat of eviction may lead a tenant to seek new accommodation just as surely as any written notice. Let us not forget that the use of the powers under clause 87 will be exceptional and may well be applied to a landlord who may not be scrupulous in using written legal forms. Clearly, there is a judgment to be made on the nature of any threat, and I fear that the amendment does not remove the need for such a judgment; it requires that one should go behind the issuing of a written notice and gauge what its intention might be.

John Hayes: Essentially, the Minister is saying that there would be a consequential test of the threat—that the consequences of the threat would be weighed heavily when taking into account the subsequent action of all concerned. His reference to case law illustrates precisely that test—a measurement of consequence in relation to threat. If that is the case and that is his advice, it to some extent nullifies the concerns that the hon. Member for Ludlow and I have raised. So, will the Minister make it clear that the consequences would automatically be considered when gauging and evaluating the nature of a threat?

Keith Hill: Yes, I think that that is right. I am content to accept that interpretation. If that satisfies the hon. Gentleman, I hope that he will agree to withdraw the amendment, which considers only one aspect of what a threat of eviction might amount to. It is too limiting, and for those reasons we prefer the words in the Bill.

Vera Baird: I want to understand this provision properly. Would an owner of a home that must be licensed under the new provisions be debarred under clause 89 from deciding that he does not want to have it licensed—he is going to use it for something completely different—and therefore deciding legitimately to evict all the tenants and change the building's use? In addition, will my right hon. Friend clarify how the provisions of clause 89 fit with those of clause 73, which allows for a temporary exemption from licensing in order to allow somebody to take their property out of the category in which it would need to be licensed? If it is legitimate to take one's property out of the licensing category and the only way of doing that is to evict one's tenants, why is that to be stopped by clause 89 when clause 73 appears to permit it?

Keith Hill: I must confess that I do not necessarily wholly understand the question posed by my hon. and learned Friend. She may choose to come back at me on this, but I undertake to read her question very carefully and make a more detailed response. If the question is whether there are circumstances in which an owner who is making a legitimate decision about the future of his property be debarred from undertaking the evictions to pursue that legitimate decision, the answer is no. That is only one factor that a local authority may take into account.

Vera Baird: That is helpful, but if the landlord decided to evict his tenants, he would be doing so
''in order to avoid the house being required to be licensed''. 
That is the turn of phrase in clause 89, which gets the landlord into trouble. So, is my right hon. Friend correct?

Keith Hill: In those circumstances, presumably the owner has taken the decision that the property should cease to be licensable. To that extent, the decision he takes on eviction would be legitimate. I hope that that satisfies my hon. and learned Friend.

John Hayes: Will the Minister give way?

Keith Hill: I shall be grateful for an intervention, because it might allow further elucidation to wing its way to me.

John Hayes: The sensible point raised by the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird)—I say that despite the fact that she was entirely graceless to me earlier—is the point that landlords made to me, and the one that I quoted.
 The situation that I described earlier, in which a landlord takes the decision to change from having a property that is subject to licensing to having one that is not would necessarily involve him in ''threatening 
 eviction.'' There is a judgment to be made about what ''threatening'' means in those circumstances, but a malicious tenant could use the provision in a way that would oblige the local authority to act in accordance with the current stipulations of the Bill, rather than under the Bill as we hope it will be amended. 
 The hon. and learned Lady is on to a good point, which landlords made, I tried to articulate, and she has ably reinforced. I want the Minister to be clearer about whether a local authority would be obliged to act in those circumstances and how far it would have discretion in the case of a landlord who was acting perfectly properly, but who had tenants who did not want to leave and had interpreted his action as a threat.

Keith Hill: It might be for the Committee's convenience, and possibly my own, if I attempt to give a more comprehensive answer to the issues that are arising in this debate. I give way to the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green).

Matthew Green: I am grateful for the opportunity to help the Minister, by allowing time for his thoughts to gather.
 The hon. and learned Member for Redcar has done the Committee a great service by striking upon an interesting issue. When is it reasonable for a landlord to take that action? Under clause 87, the property could be the subject of an interim management order; if it had three or more floors and five or more occupants, the landlord might decide to ask one person to leave because from now on they only want four people to be in it, or because they are going to close the top floor to reduce it to two floors. That would be a legitimate business decision for the landlord to make, regardless of any views that people might have about the condition in which it leaves the other tenants. However, under the clause, that action would constitute a threat to evict; it would be detrimental to the welfare of the person being evicted and it would be grounds for an IMO. 
 I am becoming increasingly concerned that the measure has the potential to override landlords' legitimate business decisions. If a landlord decides to ask everyone to leave because he is going to sell the property or live in it himself, it appears that he would still be caught under the clause. I suspect that that is less likely if a landlord says, ''Well, they are all leaving and I am going to live there,'' but I am especially concerned about cases in which there are five occupants and he asks one of them to leave. I hope that my contribution has given the Minister sufficient time to gather his thoughts and come back with a decisive answer.

Peter Pike: Order. Hon. Members are trying to intervene on interventions, and several of the interventions this afternoon have been quite long. I accept that points have been raised that are not unimportant, but interventions should be brief. If
 Members want to contribute to the debate, they should make speeches rather than interventions if they are going to speak for long.

Keith Hill: I am most grateful for that, Mr. Pike. Perhaps, in order to assist the flow of dialogue on these matters, I should reserve my position and respond to what has become a mini-debate on this subject.

Alan Whitehead: Notwithstanding the answer to the mini-debate, my question is, why does the clause refer only to part 2, whereas other clauses refer to parts 2 and 3? It ought to refer to both parts. I would have thought that it is important to establish that.

Keith Hill: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that. In the comprehensive response that I hope I will be in a position to make, I will deal with that issue as well.

Robert Syms: The Minister is doing very well.
 The hon. and learned Member for Redcar raised an important point: a legitimate action by the landlord could lead to an IMO being imposed by the authority. If an IMO is imposed, it is clearly stated in later clauses that the authority cannot sell or deal with the property, although it does have a local land charge against it. Will the owner be able to sell at that point? If landlords feel that they will lose control of their property—the ability to sell—when there is an IMO, is there not an incentive for them to try to get out of the licensing regime in the first place?

Keith Hill: I am grateful to Committee members for their observations, and I will attempt to deal with the precise points that they have raised.
 We must bear in mind that the cases described are unlikely to be common. However, law is often about dealing with the most difficult cases. It is the duty of makers of law such as us to anticipate difficult cases and to try to respond to them. I do not for one moment suggest that I am likely to have all the answers to the questions raised. I ask the Committee to accept that I may need to write in clarification of these issues. 
 Let me remind my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) that subsection (3) is a continuation of those provisions in part 2 that relate to the management order arrangement. In response to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar, I hope that the following is helpful. We were debating what is, and what is not, a legitimate decision. A temporary exemption certificate would be granted in the event of a legitimate decision, yet some properties—hostels, for example—will only ever be suitable for HMO purposes. That might prevent a property from being changed to some other use, in which case intervention by way of a management order would seem appropriate, although I remind the Committee that any landlord proposing to go down that path would have the right of appeal against a decision to make an interim management order. If subsection (3) were removed, the local authority would 
 never be able to take account of the fact that a hostel, such as the one that I mentioned in the Southwark case, was being shut down. The provision is therefore important, and it offers significant protections to tenants in the situations envisaged. 
 I think it unlikely that I have dealt with all the specific and varied points made by colleagues, but I undertake to read the record with exceptional care and to attempt to offer a more complete response on the issues.

John Hayes: The Minister has gone some way towards satisfying us on some of the points that we have raised, particularly in his comments about judging a threat by its consequences. He dealt with temporary exemptions, which was a useful clarification. However, he has not referred to any impact that the provisions may have on the existing legal rights of landlords. I said at the beginning of the debate that one of landlords' concerns was how to properly give notice in a way that is entirely within the law. I wonder what impact the Bill will have on the legal enticements to do so. The Minister seemed to imply that the provisions will not have legal implications, but is there not an implicit contradiction in the clause? He may want to look at the matter again and write to us, as this is a complex issue. Certainly, there are those who believe that the legislation has implications for existing legal rights, and I want some pretty firm assurances before I am entirely satisfied that it does not.

Keith Hill: This is a difficult area of legislation. The underlying thrust of the legislation is protecting vulnerable tenants, but we must balance that proper concern with the rights of landlords. One thing that characterised our discussions on Thursday and today about tenancies is the concern to protect both the enshrined rights of tenants and the rights of landlords in relation to tenants. In answer to the hon. Gentleman's question, we do not construe the provision as a diminution of the fundamental rights of property owners. Our purpose is not to do that, but to offer local authorities some means of intervention against bad management and the behaviour of unscrupulous landlords.

Matthew Green: To return to the question asked by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test, which the Minister believes that he has answered—[Interruption.] The Minister has not answered it. The Minister has not answered it. The clause only refers to part 2. Clause 89 says that
'''the health and safety condition' is for the purposes of section 87.'' 
Clause 87(2) says that it is 
''an HMO or a Part 3 house which is required to be licensed under Part 2 or Part 3 . . . but is not so licensed'' 
and there should be either 
''no reasonable prospect of its being so licensed in the near future, or . . . the health and safety condition is satisfied (see section 89).''
It would appear that reference to part 3 is missing, although there may be more references to it later. I cannot see whether part 3 should be mentioned in clause 87 or clause 89, but we must have one or the other.

Keith Hill: Let me attempt to answer that question. The hon. Member for Ludlow should not make presumptions, saying that the Minister believes that he has answered these issues. The Minister's capacity for disbelief about his capacity to answer these questions is almost bottomless. Nevertheless, it is my job to do my best in such circumstances and to try to answer the questions seriously on the basis of advice.
 In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test, who asked why clause 89 only mentioned part 2 and not part 3, the advice I received, which we will see is right if we look carefully at the Bill, is that the health and safety condition applies to both parts of the Bill, but the threat to evict applies only to part 2. Nevertheless, we foresee a few occasions on which a threat to close a single house could have the same impact as the closure of hostel. 
Matthew Green indicated dissent.—

Keith Hill: The hon. Gentleman allows himself to indulge in an expression of incredulity. Nevertheless, there is obvious logic to that advice. A hostel housing a large number of people is more likely to have a larger impact on individuals and tenants than the closure of a single house. It is not unreasonable that we should be making distinctive provision for those circumstances.

Matthew Green: My understanding is that selective licensing under part 3, which is not included here, would be used particularly in low-demand areas, for example, where there are rows of terraced houses in former coal mining areas. I understand that in some cases whole rows of houses are in the ownership of one person who is not a good landlord and who may seek to evict every family in a row rather than be licensed. That would be just as injurious as the occupants of a single hostel being evicted. If that is the reason why the provision does not apply in such cases, I struggle to see why part 3 is not included. That is a missed opportunity for the Government.

Keith Hill: I would be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman describe precisely the nature of that missed opportunity and how he would construe it in legislation. I invite him to say that, even though I am tempting him down the route of further debate. It is right and proper that the Bill deals with individual licences on a case-by-case basis. In the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman described an authority would be dealing with each property separately.

Matthew Green: But part 3 is about selective licensing, not about dealing with individual properties, and it has not been mentioned in the clause. To do that in law, one would just write ''and Part 3'' after part 2. Then, the situation that I described, where one landlord owned a row of terraced houses and sought to evict his tenants to avoid a management order being imposed on him, would be covered by the
 Government's remit. The Government do not need to defend that, because it is in their interests to accept what the hon. Member for Southampton, Test said—and he did a good job of pointing out what they missed.

Keith Hill: I reiterate my earlier response to the hon. Gentleman. The health and safety condition applies to both parts of the Bill, but there are few occasions in which the closure of a single house could have the impact that the closure of larger premises could have. In those circumstances, I must cleave to the provisions in the Bill. While not being yielding in the least about the wording—indeed, I have not heard explicit support for the amendment—the Committee has asked important questions and we undertake to consider such matters.

Alan Whitehead: In effect, my right hon. Friend has answered the point on which I was about to press him, which is that in an area of high HMO stress—not necessarily in an area of low demand—the several HMOs that a local authority might wish to start registering in addition to those that it is required to register may result from the concentration of HMOs. For example, there might be many houses occupied by students: a two-storey house might have eight, 10 or 11 students in it. Therefore, the impact of landlords trying to evade registration by evicting the tenants in those circumstances may be severe. I welcome my right hon. Friend's suggestion that such matters might be considered and I hope that the Committee does, too.

Keith Hill: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He has offered me a lifeline. In view of our debate, it would be churlish of me to do anything other than to undertake to have another look at the provisions. If the Government consider it necessary, they might return at a later stage with new proposals, but I make no absolute commitment about that. Indeed, my hon. Friend is not asking for a change to be made to the Bill.

Vera Baird: May we return briefly to the other half of the debate and clause 89? If I have understood the position clearly, my right hon. Friend the Minister has answered the point that I raised. A person who owns a property and wants not to have it licensed must not threaten to evict his tenants. He will fall foul of the clause. He must tell the local authority that he intends to evict his tenants, so that he can claim a temporary exemption from the licensing provision under clause 73. Only then can he tell his tenants that they will be evicted. Is that right?

Keith Hill: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for that clarification. I shall have to reflect on the matter. I shall certainly examine her interpretation carefully and I undertake to write to her about it. I shall deal with the range of issues raised in the debate in the form of a letter to my hon. and learned Friend, which I shall circulate to members of the Committee. That might be the most satisfactory way in which to take the issue forward at this stage.

John Hayes: The Minister has been most generous in his answers to several queries raised in Committee. He has agreed to look at the matter again and write to us about it. He realises that helpful and constructive points have been made. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. 
 Clause 89 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 90 - Operation of interim management orders

Amendments made: No. 59, in 
clause 90, page 61, line 35, leave out 'county court' and insert 'residential property tribunal'. 
No. 60, in 
clause 90, page 62, line 8, leave out 'county court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
No. 61, in 
clause 90, page 62, line 14, leave out 'the court' and insert 'a residential property tribunal'.—[Keith Hill.] 
 Clause 90, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 91 - Local housing authority's duties once interim management order in force

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 319, in
clause 91, page 63, line 3, leave out
'For the avoidance of doubt'.
 This is not a terribly complex matter, and I will not test the Under-Secretary's patience by going on for too long. It is appropriate that we avoid ambiguity in this clause, and the phrase, 
 ''For the avoidance of doubt'', 
at the beginning of subsection (7) implies an ambiguity that I am sure is not intended or desired. To start the subsection with 
''the authority's duty under subsection (3) includes'' 
and so on, may seem like a pedantic change, but it improves the Bill and removes perceived ambiguity. I hope that the Under-Secretary accepts the amendment with the same charm that her colleague accepted an earlier amendment, which was smaller in detail but of a similar kind.

Matthew Green: For the avoidance of doubt, let me say that we support this amendment, as it would remove superfluous words.

Yvette Cooper: I quite like these superfluous words. Clause 91 sets out the local housing authority's obligations after making the interim management order and states that it must take immediate steps to protect the health, safety and welfare of those occupying the premises or living
 nearby. Where the house is not subject to a licence, it must decide, at the end of the order, whether to make a full management order.
 The reason for subsection (7) is to ensure that while the management order is in force a local authority must make reasonable provision for the insurance of the property. In that case, we are talking about buildings insurance. The local authority is not required to insure property in general; for example, it is not required to insure its own property. In many instances, there will already be adequate building insurance, but where there is not such insurance we are requiring the local authority to do what any acceptable manager would do to ensure that their property is properly insured. 
 Although local authorities may sometimes self-insure, which they might do for their own property because it is less expensive, the reason for the subsection is to make it clear that no dispute should arise on this point. The provision will ensure that the local authority does not choose not to insure and then have disputes arising about where liability lies. A similar provision already exists in section 385 of the Housing Act 1985, where a local authority has made a control order under that Act. 
 I like the words in subsection (7) because they make it clear that without the subsection there would be doubt as to whether the local authority would have the final responsibility to provide insurance, or to ensure that a building's insurance was in place. There might also be doubt as to whether the local authority could simply self-insure in those circumstances. I find the words helpful compared with the wording of lots of Bills, where the reason for introducing particular subsections or clauses is not clear. This makes it clear that without the subsection there could be doubt as to what the local authority's responsibilities would be, so we are keeping it for the avoidance of doubt. For that reason, I ask the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings to withdraw his amendment and stick with the words that are unusually helpful as far as parliamentary drafting is concerned.

John Hayes: It is never entirely convincing when—as the Under-Secretary did—someone starts an argument by acknowledging that the words are superfluous. She went on, however, to tell us that they are not superfluous because without them there would be doubt. The argument that she made could be applied to almost any clause, in the sense that any clause prefixed—

Yvette Cooper: Let me clarify. I am not saying that without these particular phrases there would be doubt. I am saying that without this subsection there would be doubt. Therefore, these words explain that, and they are making clear the purpose for introducing the subsection. It is quite helpful when some words explain the purpose of introducing a subsection.

John Hayes: That may be helpful, and I understand that the Under-Secretary was not making a case for the words but for their implication and what they said about this subsection. However, I am fairly certain—although I have not applied this test to every
 subsection in the Bill—that there are a number of subsections for which that argument for a prefix of this kind could be made. Unless it is applied wherever it is desirable, I suspect that it should not be applied at all. This is not a major amendment, but I will briefly give way to the hon. Member for Ludlow because I am sure that he will make some pithy and useful comment.

Matthew Green: I was going to suggest that the hon. Gentleman and I might want to jointly table a series of amendments, sticking ''for the avoidance of doubt'' in front of every clause that we could. Since that is clearly a helpful way of drafting the Bill, we could be very helpful for the Government by tabling—I would guess—100 or more amendments. The Government would clearly have to accept them.

John Hayes: Much as that exercise might provide us with mutual pleasure, my social life is so busy that I could not possibly find time to fit the hon. Gentleman in it in the next few weeks or even months.
 However, the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, and it is the same point that I am making. I do not want to divide the Committee any further. I will not press the amendment to a Division for two reasons. First, because we are not at full strength. Secondly, because I do not want to give the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) the chance to vote, given that he is visiting us once again—perhaps only briefly. Consequently, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. 
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. 
 Clause 91 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 92 - general effect of interim management orders

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 320, in
clause 92, page 63, line 16, at beginning insert 'only'.

Peter Pike: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
 Amendment No. 321, in 
clause 92, page 63, line 17, leave out from 'which' to end of line 18 and insert 
 'ensures the immediate health, safety and welfare of the occupants'. 
Amendment No. 324, in 
clause 100, page 69, line 37, leave out from 'which' to end of line 38 and insert 
 'ensures the immediate health, safety and welfare of the occupants'.

John Hayes: The amendments are designed to ensure, once again, that the interests of landlords are protected. Committee members will note that throughout the course of these proceedings I have argued the case for balance in these matters. The lengthy debate that we had on the last amendment but one was designed to do just that.
 It seems that if a local authority takes possession of a house through a final or interim management order, it should make only the changes that are absolutely necessary to ensure the safety and welfare of the 
 occupants. In other words, if the house was in a poor enough condition to be issued with a management order, steps should be taken to ensure that that situation is reversed, but nothing more. It should not be at the liberty of the authority to make all manner of changes—even though they may be regarded as improvements—over and above what is necessary, because that would be at the landlord's expense. I suspect that that will differ from authority to authority, depending on how they interpret their role in respect of the management orders. Some authorities might want to take more action than others, unless the wording of the Bill makes it clear that the actions that they take should be directly related to the reasons for their initial involvement. The purpose of these amendments is to make that absolutely clear. 
 I would be interested to hear the Minister's response. These are not unhelpful amendments, and they reflect landlords' concerns. I do not want to give the impression that I am the spokesman for landlords on every occasion. I am certainly not, but I think it important that landlords' worries are taken into account, given that, as the Minister has freely acknowledged, these are extensive new powers that have an unprecedented impact on traditional rights of ownership and the existing legal position of landlords. To that end, any assurances that the Minister can offer about the involvement of local authorities and what they are likely to do at the landlord's expense are important. I hope that the Minister can give such assurances in his comments.

Vera Baird: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the following? The local authority that takes over control of the house in the IMO remains the local authority, and has quite wide powers over all the houses in its area. Is it really right to seek to confine the local authority's powers in relation to a particular house to those of an owner when it might want, for example, to compulsorily purchase it, or do anything else that a local authority can do with its houses?

John Hayes: There is a point to be made on the provisions of the clause and the powers of local authorities in that regard. I would like the Minister to elaborate on that. There are two arguments. First, there might be a contradiction between what the Bill does—and, indeed, between what my amendment does—on the one hand and the existing powers of the local authorities. That is the point that the hon. and learned Lady made. Secondly, there is a point about whether there is duplication in the provisions, and whether local authorities already have powers in respect of properties that are duplicated in some degree in the Bill, whether amended or unamended. That is what the hon. and learned Lady implied. I would be interested in the Minister's comments on both those matters. The hon. and learned Lady makes an interesting point, which I acknowledge is worthy of proper consideration.

Keith Hill: Again, I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar and to the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings for a constructive and concise debate.
 Let me attempt, as I usually do, to sketch out the broader purposes of the clause before offering what I hope will be some reassurance to the hon. Gentleman on his concerns. The clause provides that, under an IMO, the local housing authority can take over many of the rights and obligations of the landlord in respect of the house. The counterpart to the clause for the purposes of final management orders is clause 100. 
 A local housing authority has the power to manage the property and to authorise a manager to do so on its behalf while the IMO is in force. It also has the power to permit others to take up occupation of the premises, but only with the written consent of the legal owners. The local authority does not acquire the legal estate, and the house is not treated as local authority accommodation for the purposes of any other statutory provision. Therefore, occupiers do not acquire the status of secure tenants of the local authority. 
 Occupiers of the premises retain the same rights that they had before the management order was made. Clause 106 deals with the effect of management orders on the occupiers. The interim management order is a local land charge—that is, the order and any related costs would be binding on a subsequent owner. In practice, that would mean that any moneys owed to the authority by the owner would have to be paid before a sale could proceed. 
 The hon. Gentleman's amendments would amend subsection (3)(b) and the equivalent provision in clause 100 in relation to final management orders. Amendment 320 amends subsection (3)(b) so that the local authority would only have the right to do something that the landlord could do. I think that I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that the power in that subsection is relatively limited. We are seeking to provide a power that will allow the local authority to manage the property effectively. That is not dispossessing the owner of all of his rights. Indeed, the local authority's powers are very clearly limited by the provisions in subsections (4) and (5), which, for example, prevent the local authority from allowing further occupation without the owner's consent—or, indeed, from disposing of the property. Therefore, I do not believe that the amendment is necessary. 
 Amendments Nos. 321 and 324 would further amend the provision on interim and final management orders so that the local authority would be able to do something in relation to management of the property only if that 
''ensures the immediate health, safety and welfare of the occupants''. 
Such an approach would prevent management orders from being made for the protection of people in the surrounding area. Although I welcome hon. Members' desire that the interests of occupants are 
 protected, it is important that bad management can be addressed to protect the interests of people in the wider community. 
 Such a provision would be particularly unsuited to FMOs. Those orders provide for the long-term management of the property. The amendment proposing that action can relate only to immediate health and safety concerns seems inappropriate if we are expecting local authorities to take a long-term view of their management function. 
 I should also give another reason why I believe that it is necessary for management orders to be made even if there seems to be no immediate threat to the welfare of the tenants. As I have said, licensing requires that effective management be in place in the worst types of properties. Generally, the way to ensure that will be by granting a licence. If there is no possibility of a licence being granted, the only way of achieving that is by making the local authority responsible for the management of the property before a longer-term solution can be found. Not to have such an approach would be entirely to undermine what licensing is about. 
 In light of those responses, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

John Hayes: The Minister makes an important point about the impact that the property might have on the neighbourhood. Earlier, we made a strong argument that that might be extended to include nuisance. On that basis, it would be inappropriate for me to refute the Minister's arguments about the possible wider effects of poor management.
 I worry about the issues first raised by the hon. and learned Member for Redcar, and then by me, about the relationship between this power and other powers local authorities might have. We should think about that again as we make progress through the Bill. Given the Minister's remark that this amendment would limit the scope of the authority in the terms that he has described, it would be inappropriate to press it to a Division. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. 
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. 
 Clause 92 ordered to stand part of the Bill. 
 Clause 93 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 94 - Financial arrangements while order is in force

Andrew Selous: I beg to move amendment No. 322, in clause 94, page 65, line 23, leave out from 'made' to end of line 24 and insert
'as soon as is practically possible after deductions to meet relevant expenditure are made'.

Peter Pike: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
 Amendment No. 326, in clause 102, page 72, line 5, leave out 'from time to time' and insert 
'as soon as is practically possible'.
 Amendment No. 329, in clause 110, page 77, line 35, leave out from 'landlords' to second 'as' in line 36.

Andrew Selous: The three amendments relate to the balance that is to be struck between the rights of landlords and the protection of vulnerable tenants and residents around the relevant properties. Amendment No. 322 removes the part of clause 94(4)(b) that gives the local housing authority the power as they see appropriate to return moneys to landlords under interim management orders and adds the words
''as soon as is practically possible after deductions to meet relevant expenditure are made''.
 That amendment, along with the other two that relate to clauses 102 and 110, are necessary to prevent local authorities from having unfettered freedom to withhold payments. As those three clauses are currently worded, that seems completely at their discretion. No guidance is given about how they should proceed in such matters. 
 Earlier, the Minister for Housing and Planning talked about the fact that we are dealing with a serious intrusion into the rights of property owners under several parts of the Bill. Conservative Members are in full agreement about dealing with the type of problems that the Bill will address. However, a correct balance must be struck in respect of the rights of landlords. When the Under-Secretary of State replies, will she tell us whether it is the Government's intention that there should be further punishment of the landlords by delaying the moneys that are due back to them? 
 My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) has referred several times to the position of banks and building societies, the companies that have lent money to the landlords. Indeed, as currently worded, the clause prevents the landlords from bringing their affairs into proper order and from introducing the necessary changes to the property or selling it to a landlord who would be more responsible. 
 Under amendment No. 322, it is clear that the local authorities should be able to deduct all relevant expenditure. That is absolutely right. There should be no question that such measures should have a net cost for local authorities. As for amendment No. 326, the Under-Secretary will note that clause 102(4)(d) refers to 
''provision as to the payment by the authority to a relevant landlord, from time to time''. 
That gives extraordinary freedom to the local housing authority about when it should make the relevant net payments back to the landlord. The substitution of ''from time to time'' by the words 
''as soon as is practically possible'' 
would be a more reasonable and fair wording of the clause. 
 The final amendment in the group is to clause 110(2). It would amend a provision that gives undue and unfettered power to the local housing authority. It would remove the words ''as they consider appropriate'' and leave half of the sentence in the clause, which states that the termination of management orders would be 
''as soon as practicable after the termination date.''
 No guidance is given to local authorities about when they should make back the payments. If the Under-Secretary has a time scale in mind, perhaps she might enlighten the Committee about it when she replies to the debate.

Sydney Chapman: I am very concerned about clause 94. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on the way in which he introduced the amendment. Perhaps I do not want to be left out, which is why I am compelled to refer to it. I fully support the amendment. I need not rehearse the reasons for that, because they are obvious.
 I wish to talk about what I consider to be a worrying problem vis a vis local authorities and members of the general public. I am not about to attack my local authority; I am making a corporate attack. What a local authority believes to be reasonable expenditure is not necessarily reasonable. I do not want to get off the issue, but we have all encountered what I call the vehicle crossover problem. When a person wants to drive and parks their car off the street they apply to a local planning authority for permission, whereupon the authority insists that it does the work and probably charges 100 per cent. more than the householder would have to pay another estimator while keeping within the specification. Unless the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire is included in this clause, there will be an open invitation for local authorities to charge for anything other than reasonable expenditure against the former landlord. 
 I should like to provide an example about which the Under-Secretary may be able to reassure me. Let us suppose that the local housing authority decides that x thousand pounds of work is needed to bring a property up to the standards of health, safety and welfare and if that costs x thousand pounds, the income that the authority receives from the tenants in situ would be x hundred pounds. The authority could, perhaps reasonably, say, ''As the sum needed to effect the works is 10 times the gross weekly income that the landlord would have received, we will deny him any money for 10 weeks until we have got all that money to spend.'' 
 It is reasonable that the authority should be able to charge only for the work that is done when it receives the bill from the contractor. I have no problem with that. I believe that everybody is equal under the law. Using my rather crude example, a landlord company may be able to afford to do without any income for 10 weeks. However, we all know that a considerable number of landlords have only one or two properties. They might be elderly people on relatively low incomes and in the evening of their years, relying on the income from their one asset to keep themselves. It is proper that in dealing with such an issue the Bill should contain protection for such people. I need not continue with my explanation. I hope that I have made a point that is understandable. 
 When the Minister and the Under-Secretary respond, I ask them to think of landlords in total, not just about people whom they imagine to be the successors of Rachman, or those with many properties who can afford the loss of one because they are bolstered by revenues from others. This is a problem. I have no doubt that although housing authorities are, in the main, composed of decent people, they will cover their expenses absolutely and increase their assessment of the expenditure that they need to run a property. We must protect the landlord from the authority who has taken over the property. I am beginning to repeat myself, so I shall sit down.

Matthew Green: The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire has done the Committee a great favour in moving these amendments—for which I have much sympathy—particularly two of them, although there are problems with the third. Before I deal with those in detail I have to say that I support what the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet said about when the money is deducted. It would be unreasonable if the authority deducted the money in advance of work being carried out because it knew that it needed to get it.
 I am also concerned about the overall cost. Under clause 94(7) expenditure includes administrative costs. That could potentially be a large part of the deductions by any local authority. What checks and balances are there on a local authority to ensure that that it is being reasonable in charging? For instance, say a local authority covered a difficult area and had several properties with interim management orders at the same time. It might have an officer to deal with IMOs. Who checks that the authority is dividing the cost of that officer between the seven or eight properties? Who is to say that the council is not charging for that officer seven or eight times over?

Vera Baird: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is fully correct. There is a power under clause 94(6) for a relevant landlord in this position to apply to the court—although it is bound to be to the tribunal now—for a declaration that the expenses are not reasonable. Is that not adequate protection?

Matthew Green: I thank the hon. and learned Lady for that, but I am not sure that that is adequate. How could an individual prove that the cost of an officer's time had been fairly divided? Will officers be expected to keep detailed records of exactly how many visits they make and how much time they spend? We need more information from the Minister about how that will happen.
 On amendment No. 322, it seems entirely reasonable that the landlord should pay the money 
''as soon as is practically possible'' 
rather than 
''at such intervals as the authority consider appropriate.''
The latter could vary considerably. There is no guidance, but perhaps the Under-Secretary will say that the Government will issue guidance, and in which case that should happen every month. Certainly, we need more information. 
 I am even more in sympathy with amendment No. 326, because I am fascinated by the phrase ''from time to time'', which sounds a bit like ''when we can be bothered''. It reads as though the local authority can do it whenever it chooses, and there is not even the test of reasonableness in the sentence.

John Hayes: , I can reveal to the hon. Gentleman that when we were drawing up the amendment, we considered inserting a time frame of perhaps three months. However, in fairness to local authorities, we decided not to do that because different local authorities in different circumstances with different houses would have different requirements for using and spending money. We therefore erred on the side of caution also in respect of landlords' interests. As the hon. Gentleman has said, the amendment is balanced and I am delighted that he supports it.

Matthew Green: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. What springs to mind is an age-old concern about fairness, which is often expressed in my surgery—I am sure other hon. Members hear about it too. There is the feeling that when an individual is being pursued for tax, he definitely cannot be late in paying, but if that individual is waiting for the Government to pay him, they can be late. There is a sense of that unfairness in this clause: it is perfectly okay for the local authority not to cough up on a set date or regularly, but it would be different if it were the other way around.
 Although I have supported two of the amendments, I am concerned about amendment No. 329. I am not sure that the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire got to the heart of what he meant by the amendment. My reading of clause 110(2)(b) is that the phrase, 
''in such proportions . . . as they consider appropriate'' 
relates to where there is more than one owner. In other words, the local authority could hand the money over to more than one person, and my concern is that deleting those words would make that impossible.

Andrew Selous: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, and on first sight I can understand how he came to his position. However, if he looks at subsection (2)(b), he will find that our amendment would leave paragraph (b) to read:
''to such relevant landlords . . . as soon as practicable after the termination date.'' 
It is quite clear that where the property has more than one owner, it would be the responsibility of the local housing authority to pay the moneys to those landlords, presumably in the relevant proportions.

Matthew Green: The hon. Gentleman has said ''presumably in the relevant proportions''. I think that that is the same as the words
''as they consider appropriate; and the balance is to be paid by them''.
I do not see that the amendment will lead to any advances and it will potentially lead to some problems. That is not to say that the other two amendments have not done the Committee a great service by challenging some of the assumptions behind the ideas. I am sure that the Minister will come up with reassurances about the performance of local authorities and how well they should act.

John Hayes: I hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say. He will at least concede, I hope, that ''consider appropriate'' could be interpreted both in the way identified by him and in that originally pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire. ''Consider appropriate'' is a dangerous term to leave in the Bill, given the vagaries of the ways in which it could be interpreted.

Matthew Green: I suspect that the hon. Gentleman may have a point. However, the wholesale deletion of that section would probably be counter-productive. The Minister might want to consider that point, in case the words ''consider appropriate'' give the clause too much ambiguity.
 One final point is raised by amendment No. 322, which refers to clause 94(4). The sentence before the one that would be affected by the amendment refers to 
''interest on that amount at a reasonable rate fixed by the authority''. 
Could the Minister offer some guidance as to what would be considered to be a reasonable rate? Would base rate be considered reasonable, or base rate minus one or minus two? What about twice base rate? That would be very reasonable; a few of us would probably be glad if our bank accounts paid twice base rate. What would be considered reasonable? I am sure that it should have some bearing on the base rate and I am surprised that the Government do not appear to offer any guidance. Will we simply leave it up to the local finance officers from around the country to come up with variations on a reasonable rate of interest?

Vera Baird: I have some sympathy with the amendments. If rent is to be paid over, there seems to be no reason why it should not be paid over as soon as possible once the local authority is satisfied with the expenditure that it has to meet. However, I prefaced what I said by raising the issue of whether rent is to be paid over to the landlord. Without expressing a view about whether that is right, I am anxious for some clarification about the balance between clause 83, which we discussed last week, and the current position. Clause 83 makes it perfectly clear that if a person continues to manage to run a house that should be licensed but is not, he is not entitled to any rent. If he is so unlicensed that there is no reasonable prospect of his ever being licensed, and the local authority takes the property over and an IMO is implemented, he is suddenly entitled to his rent again—notwithstanding that the authority has to run the property for him. I was anxious about the issue of stopping rent being due under clause 83; I express no view about which approach is right, but I cannot see much consistency between the two.

John Hayes: I hear what the hon. and learned Lady says, but would she consider that the people caught by clause 83 would effectively have broken the law? They would have knowingly put themselves in a position that is outside the law on licensing. People affected by this clause will be subject to one of the orders, but that will not necessarily mean that they have broken the law in the same way or to the same extent as those affected by clause 83. I put that as a question, rather than as a statement.

Vera Baird: There is a clear opportunity for someone to say that they want to take their property out of the licensing system and that it is then exempted. There is also a clear opportunity for a person to apply for a licence and not to get into any trouble so long as the application is pending. Only a person who runs a house that is unlicensed under clause 82 is likely to be seen as someone whom there is no reasonable prospect of licensing. Therefore, I think that it will be somebody who has broken the law in the first instance who will suddenly be entitled to rent, even though the local authority has had to protect the tenants. That is an inconsistent position, and I seek clarification on it.

Robert Syms: One is taking from a property income that may in some way be committed—to a mortgage, to plumbers, to insurance or even in the sense that it pays for a family's Tesco shopping bill. The owner of the HMO may not be a wicked landlord; she may be a vulnerable old widow whose only income is what she gets from the property. Committed income of some type is taken, and the local authority is allowed to have first charge on it—to spend money on a property ahead of all the other people who may have loaned money, performed services or done jobs for that property. That may put the owner in a difficult position in the short term because they have no income. They may have to go to the Benefits Agency to find out their rights. I am sure that many such people visit their local Members of Parliament to find out their situation.
 The local authority will then be in a position to commit that money to bringing the property up to certain minimum standards. That might be fine, except that it will present the owner with a problem, at least for a period. One hopes that after the property has been brought up to the minimum standard there will be a surplus income, but there may not be. As the orders last for 12 months, the amount of money spent on the property may exceed the rental income from it. What happens if there is a deficit after 12 months? Does the authority keep the property until it gets its money back, or will the owner be expected to pay back the moneys that have been spent—in other words, to discharge the property from the interim management order? The assumption of the hon. and learned Member for Redcar is that there will still be some surplus moneys. In the case of a small HMO that needs substantial works to the roof, the plumbing or the electrics, there may be insufficient moneys.

Matthew Green: I rise to further the hon. Gentleman' s point. I know of a couple of small landlords who own two or three properties and they
 live off the rents from them. If one of them were caught, and they were making payments under a Child Support Agency judgment but all of their money was removed, would the local authority or the CSA have first claim?

Robert Syms: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. As other hon. Members have said with regard to local authority administrative costs, it is important that local authorities do not lose out. I have no doubt that the legal departments of local authorities would be involved with the orders and in giving advice to a housing committee on the rights of the owner and the responsibilities to them. Given what solicitors charge these days, it would not take many hours of advice to add £500 or £1,000 to a bill or set of accounts. Under current arrangements, although the local authority would have to provide written accounts setting out what it has spent and raised, there is great scope for disagreement and argument over what the owner and the local authority think they are due respectively.
 I turn to arrears of rent or bad debt. Let us say that the owner of a property has lost it to a local authority, which is then responsible for collecting rent and managing the property. The owner may feel that the local authority is not doing a good job of collecting the rent or tenants may go missing, in which case there will be a degree of bad debt. How will that be dealt with? Does the local authority or the owner of the property take the write-offs, or is there a sharing arrangement? How will the accounting be dealt with not when things go right, everyone pays their rent and is happy and smiling and signed up to the agreement, but when we run into problems? Who will pay the bill? Will it be the owner of the HMO, who is therefore at the mercy of a local authority's efficiency in running an interim management order? Those are the sorts of questions on which I hope the Under-Secretary will enlighten the Committee.

Yvette Cooper: The amendments and the debate have raised some important issues. I shall set out what clause 94 does before I deal with the amendments.
 Clause 94 sets out the financial arrangements that must be in place while an IMO is in force. Subsection (2) defines ''relevant expenditure'' as that incurred by the local authority in the management of the house under the IMO. That includes such things as expenditure on routine repairs, capital expenditure and administrative costs. It also includes building insurance. 
 Subsection (3) provides that the authority can use rents that it has collected from the occupiers of the house to cover its expenditure on the management of the house. Subsection (4) would require the local authority, having deducted the relevant expenditure, to pay the relevant landlord the balance of any rents received at such intervals as it considers appropriate. Also, when appropriate, it must pay interest at a reasonable rate that it has determined on such sums. 
 Subsection (5) provides that the authority must keep proper accounts of its income and expenditure and must make them available for inspection or 
 verification by the relevant landlord. Subsection (6) allows a relevant landlord to seek an order from what, as amended, would be the residential property tribunal, to declare that the relevant expenditure has not been reasonably incurred, and to ask the tribunal to require the authority to make financial adjustments reflecting the tribunal's declaration. 
 Hon. Members have raised a series of questions and concerns, including some on potential delays in payment, the consequences for mortgages and so on. I want to deal with the amendments in a slightly different order. I start with amendment No. 326, which amends clause 102. The arrangements for IMOs and FMOs are slightly different, so the response to the amendments is slightly different. Amendment No. 326 would require payments to the landlord to be made as soon as practically possible when a final management order is in place. Under clause 102 and an FMO, there must be a management scheme, and the scheme must set out the financial arrangements between the local authority and the relevant landlord, including the intervals at which the payments of the surplus revenue are to be made while that FMO is in force.

John Hayes: The Under-Secretary is coming on to address management schemes, and that would deal with some of the issues raised in debate, but clause 102(4)(d) raises the notion that payments might be made ''from time to time''. I wonder whether, while dealing with management orders, she might address those aspects of the amendments to clause 94 that relate to clause 102. I appreciate that we shall consider that clause later, but the issue is highly relevant.

Yvette Cooper: That is what I am trying to do by talking about amendment No. 326. As I said, clause 102 sets out the management scheme and the need for such a scheme. The scheme must specify what ''from time to time'' means. It must set out how frequently the repayments of the surplus revenue are to be made. If the relevant landlord does not like the content of a management scheme, feels that the local authority is acting unreasonably, and thinks, ''Once every three months is not often enough; they should be repaying it every month'', they can object to the management scheme and appeal to the tribunal. The tribunal can then weigh up on one hand the details of the management scheme and the reasons why the local authority thinks that an arrangement does not allow an acceptable time in which to make surplus repayments, and on the other the landlord's argument about, for example, the timing of his mortgage repayments. There is recourse for a landlord who is concerned that a local authority is acting unreasonably or delaying the repayments, and there is a way of ensuring that the view of reasonable periodical periods of not simply the local authority but the tribunal is taken into consideration.

John Hayes: That would certainly address the issue of when payments were likely to be made. The Under-Secretary has explained the point about ''time to time''—that would be defined in advance. Could issues such as the extent of the costs incurred and the rate of interest that might be paid to landlords in respect of
 moneys held by the local authority, to which reference has been made, be determined in the management scheme in advance? Neither party would be aware of what such amounts might be. Therefore, the management scheme would satisfy only some of the concerns that have been expressed. Unless the other concerns were addressed in the Bill, it would seem that the landlord had limited recourse to law because the scheme would not be applicable.

Yvette Cooper: However, wherever the expenditure level is in question, detailed accounts must be set out. The local authority would have to justify the expenditure, what the accounts were and what constituted reasonable. Landlords would not have the same recourse of what constituted reasonable expenditure if the question did not come up until three months later when, suddenly, the chimney fell off, but they would be able to question what reasonable expenditure might be, and the local authority would not be able to decide that without giving an explanation. Therefore, arrangements for the final management orders include a process for appeal and are perfectly adequate.
 Amendment No. 322 applies to interim management orders, which arise in a slightly different circumstance. They are a temporary measure that may apply only for a matter of weeks or a few months, where a local authority is trying to find an alternative agent who might become the licensee on behalf of the landlord, or where other measures need to be taken to address the problem as rapidly as possible. An interim management order can be in place for a maximum of one year. The arrangements under clause 94 would only ever be in place for that period. 
 Clearly, local authorities should be diligent in making the payments of surplus revenue, and they should be made at relevant intervals. We must also recognise that an interim management order would be in force in response to a problem with the way in which the landlord was managing the house. The local authority is under a duty to pay any surplus revenue to the landlord at the end of order if it does not proceed to make a final management order. 
 In response to the questions raised by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet, if there are concerns about the level of expenditure, it will be possible under clause 94(6) for the landlord to appeal against the amount that the local authority spent on their behalf in repairing the property. At the end of the interim management order, the landlord can appeal to the tribunal on the grounds of what they feel to be unreasonable expenditure. Again, there is a safeguard at that point.

Andrew Selous: I am not sure that the Under-Secretary has fully answered the point that I made when I moved the amendment. She has said that subsection (6) gives the landlord the power to question the amounts shown on the bill, but she did not refer to when it is paid. She said that interim management orders will be set for only a year, and I accept that. However, that is a long time if someone is depending
 on that income or is prevented from getting their affairs in order. Will she address the question about the time scale?

Yvette Cooper: That is an important point and I will come on to address it; I am trying to address the easier points first. I have some sympathy with the fear that a landlord may have concerns that, owing to an IMO lasting an entire year, there is no repayment for that time and that that is unreasonable or unfair. Clearly, a landlord has recourse to judicial review under those circumstances, because there is always a duty to be reasonable. However, I want to consider further the landlord's circumstances when there are relatively long interim management orders.

Andrew Selous: I am interested in the fact that the Under-Secretary has conceded that that needs to be considered again. Perhaps she will look again at where, as my hon. Friend the Member for Poole suggested, the expenditure incurred may be greater than the rental income and where the landlord might incur a debt. Clause 110 would apply in that kind of situation and deal with what would happen if the opposite were true—if there were a fund of rent greater than the expenditure. However, there is no mention of what would happen if the landlord incurred a debt. Is that not dealt with in the Bill—have I not seen it? If not, will the Minister think about it again?

Yvette Cooper: Where the local authority is owed money at the end of the interim management order, because its costs are greater than the rental income throughout that period—one can certainly envisage that happening with some properties that have fallen into such a state that substantial work is needed—a series of possibilities might apply. If the conclusion at the end of the interim management order is that a final management order is needed, the debt would carry through and become part of the accounting machine under the final management order. It would continue to be a carried-over debt against which the ongoing rent under the final management order could be charged to repay it before any surplus income appeared down the line.
 Alternatively, there could be a charge on the property—or, if a licence were granted, there could be a condition attached saying that the money should be repaid within a certain period, because it would have been used for work to make a property fit for human habitation, and to make it a safe, licensable property on which a landlord could earn rent. That work would need to be done. Somebody must bear that cost, whether through rent over time or, if the landlord decided not to rent it in future, ultimately as a cost on the property. We know that there are costs in maintaining properties and ensuring that they are fit for habitation.

John Hayes: Where the landlord chooses not to rent, or the property is passed on, what are the implications for lenders of a charge against the property?

Yvette Cooper: Let me deal with the relationship with lenders and mortgage holders and try to deal first with a couple of main issues around amendment No. 322. I want us to consider further some of the aspects of the amendment to clause 94 and the amendment on the interim management orders. There is a problem with amendment No. 322. Curiously, I am advised that the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire would take away the flexibility to provide more frequent repayments, because it specifies that the payment must be made after the reasonable expenditure is incurred.
 The hon. Member for Poole suggested that authorities should not be able to charge until the bill for a particular amount of work has been received. In fact, a local authority could estimate that the work would cost £100 and decide to repay some of the surplus income, but the work could cost £70, whereon the authority would repay the remaining £30 at a later date. The amendment would prevent the authority from being able to be flexible in its response. I know that that is not the intent behind the amendment, but it would be a further problem. 
 Hon. Members also raised concerns about what happens when a mortgage is in place—for instance, what would happen if a landlord could not repay the mortgage or was having difficulty making the mortgage repayments. First, under the final management order, it is possible for local authorities to pay the mortgage directly to the mortgage lender. Secondly, under both the interim management order and the final management order, local authorities have an incentive to ensure that the mortgage is paid whenever possible, partly because that, in itself, is good management. However, given that the interim management order is taken out in the interests of the health, safety and welfare of the occupants or neighbours, local authorities would need to consider the impact on people's welfare if the house had to be repossessed—for example, because the mortgage repayments had not been made. 
 Equally, if the work was costly, or if such a huge amount of work needed to be done that no surplus income was being generated to repay the mortgage, the mortgage lender would need to consider whether to pursue the owner of the property further or whether, in order to ensure a future rental income stream from the property, it would be in the mortgage lender's interests to allow a delay in the repayment schedule in order to get the work done and the problems sorted out. 
 In practice, it will be in the interests of local authorities and mortgage lenders to be flexible in such circumstances. They will need to recognise that many of the situations that we are talking about are exactly those that can arise if there is no licensing regime or interim management order, and if no additional regime is in place. They are simply the sort of problems that can arise where considerable work suddenly needs to be done.

Andrew Selous: The remarks that the Under-Secretary made a moment ago cause me some concern. She spoke about expenditure undertaken by the local housing authority exceeding the rental income, and said that the landlord would owe money. I am concerned about that because it seems that considerable extra expenditure could be put on council tax payers if that were to be repeated in a number of instances in a local housing authority area. I wonder whether the Under-Secretary has considered that point. Does the Bill ensure that expensive works are not undertaken on specific properties belonging to private landlords, the cost of which would fall on the council tax payers in the locality? It does not seem fair or right that it should not.

Yvette Cooper: Ultimately, the local authority will need to take that into account. It is not obvious how to specify in the Bill that each of those factors would need to be taken into account. In fact, it is in the local authority's interests to weigh up all those factors when considering whether an individual property was in such a mess that it could not be restorable to make it suitable for proper human habitation. It may need to consider other remedies—for example, compulsory purchase, demolition and so on. The local authority also has an obligation to consider the interests of council tax payers. In the end, the only reason for it to introduce a selective licensing regime would be that it thought doing so could benefit the wider community. It is right that we give the local authority the discretion to take such decisions.
 My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar asked about the apparent conflict between clauses 94 and 83. I do not have a detailed legal explanation for the interaction between the clauses. However, my understanding of the overall policy impact is that the failure of landlords to obtain licences means that they are not considered to be fit and proper people to act as landlords. Therefore, they are not entitled to demand rent directly from their tenants as a result of clause 83. They cannot rent out their property. 
 However, if the local authority is, effectively, renting out the property on their behalf—if it has become the manager under an interim management order and is recovering the costs of that management—the landlords may continue to be entitled to surplus income on the property because they continue to own it. They are not managing the property because they are deemed not to be capable of doing so, but the local authority is effectively managing it on their behalf, and once all the costs of management, repairs and so forth have been taken into account it is legitimate that as the continuing owner of the property they should be entitled to the surplus income from it. That is the nature of the relationship between clauses 83 and 94. 
 The hon. Member for Ludlow asked about how administrative costs should be apportioned. In the end, that has to be done by the local authority. If a landlord thinks that costs are unreasonable, they can appeal to the housing tribunal. It would not be right for the Government to specify what the appropriate 
 administrative costs should be. That would be over-complex. It would add extra burdens, and local authorities have far greater expertise than central Government in working out the administrative costs of such situations.

Matthew Green: Does the Under-Secretary think that in these circumstances there should be some record keeping of time spent? Solicitors keep detailed records of how many telephone calls they make on behalf of their clients. Should that sort of thing not be expected of an officer in these circumstances, so that the time they have spent can be realistically attributed? That would be better than people saying, ''It is a quarter of an officer who cost £30,000 a year, so the sum is £7,500.''

Yvette Cooper: Clause 94(5) specifies that the local authority must
''keep full accounts of their income and expenditure in respect of the house''. 
It will have to account for anything that it charges against the rent, including administrative costs. It is not appropriate for the Committee to specify how, why and in what detail those costs and accounts should be set out.

Robert Syms: What about marketing costs? Authorities that would in a sense be running a property would be looking for tenants because it would be in their interests to get income if they wanted to spend money. If they spend money on marketing and advertising, can it be charged against the owner of the property? That would be more likely if there is a final management order than if there is an interim management order, whereby the owner still has some degree of control: they have to assent if somebody goes into the property. How much landlords can be charged is rather open-ended.

Yvette Cooper: Clearly, questions would be raised in the case of an IMO if the tenants decided to move on or they had to be evicted because their antisocial behaviour was part of the problem. Under those circumstances, once there was no longer a tenant it might be open for the local authority to decide that the property no longer needed to be licensed as it was not being rented out. There would not be an obligation on the local authority always to fill a property meaning that they had to market it: there are other possibilities. Administrative costs might include the costs of renting out and new tenants moving in under the FMO. It is hard to answer the hon. Gentleman's question in greater detail at this point.
 I have not yet spoken to amendment No. 329, which relates to clause 110. 
 The amendment would make it difficult for a local authority in particular circumstances to apportion different levels of payment to different landlords if there were a number of landlords involved—if, for example, a property was jointly owned—and they were entitled to receive surplus revenue. 
 The clause allows the local authority to apportion such payments as it considers appropriate. In general, the local authority would simply divide the surplus 
 equally between the relevant landlords, but that may not always be the case: for example, it might receive representations from the relevant landlords to apportion it differently. Clause 110(2) states: 
''the local housing authority must pay the balance . . . to such relevant landlords in such proportions, as they consider appropriate''. 
The phrase ''as they consider appropriate'' applies to the proportions and allows local authorities to consider what the appropriate proportions might be for the landlords. Removing that part of subsection (2)(b) would not have any impact on timing, or the obligations on the local authority in terms of timing; it would simply remove the local authority's flexibility to deal with situations in which there is more than one landlord.

Matthew Green: Just before the Under-Secretary sits down, will she touch on two points that I raised? The first point that I do not think she answered was what a ''reasonable'' rate of interest was. The other, which I raised in an intervention on the hon. Member for Poole, was the issue of cases in which rents are the landlords' sole income. Their income would, in effect, be removed because work was being done on the houses. What if there were a charge on that person, from the Child Support Agency or under a court order or something like that, and taking their income away put them in breach of that? How would those circumstances be dealt with?

Yvette Cooper: Let me answer the hon. Gentleman's first question, which is what a reasonable rate might be. It might, for example, be whatever interest the local authority receives on the balance of its bank accounts. Obviously, different circumstances might sometimes apply. On the hon. Gentleman's second point, I am reluctant to speculate on the interaction between any measure and the CSA. If I may, I will write to him about that.
 I would simply say that if a landlord is not a fit and proper person to rent out a property, in the end they are not entitled to receive rent on that property. They are not entitled to operate as a landlord on that property, just as someone who lost their job because they were not a fit and proper person to do it—they screwed up and ended up being made redundant, or were sacked, for example—would lose their income for that reason. Factors like that will need to be taken into account.

John Hayes: I intervene merely because of what the hon. Lady said in her last sentence. It takes us back to the possible contradiction between an earlier clause and this clause. It is clear from clause 92 that someone who is renting a licensable house without a licence commits an offence. If they are prosecuted for committing an offence, they will not be a fit and proper person. The Under-Secretary has just said that it would not be appropriate for someone who was not a fit and proper person to receive a rent, yet under this
 clause they will do so. So, someone who is not a fit and proper person as defined in the Bill might, in the end, receive a rent.

Yvette Cooper: As I think I tried to set out in response to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar, in those circumstances a landlord is not entitled to rent out and manage their property; they are not entitled to have a licence because they are not a fit and proper person. However, in those circumstances it might be appropriate for the local authority to become the manager and to rent it out for them, and effectively to rent it out on their behalf. The landlord remains the owner, and as owner they are entitled to the surplus income. It is therefore right that surplus income, over and above the costs of managing the housing, keeping it in good order and gauging what repairs and maintenance need to be done, should be passed on to the owner.

John Hayes: For the purposes of clarity, let us be precise. The hon. Lady is saying that a person who is not fit and proper is not entitled to be landlord, but that a person who is not fit and proper is entitled in law to live on the proceeds of rent collected by someone else.

Yvette Cooper: If that rent is collected lawfully through, for example, an interim management order, or the licence is held by somebody else, such as a managing agent, on the landlord's behalf, then yes. The landlord may not be a fit and proper person and/or able to hold the licence, but as owner he or she is entitled to receive the income that remains once somebody else has managed the property for them, so long as that management is conducted lawfully and there is a licence, if that if appropriate.
 As a final response, somebody can apply to have their CSA payment changed if circumstances change. If any of the points that I have made about the CSA turn out to be incorrect, or the situation turns out to be more complicated than I anticipated, I shall write to the hon. Member for Ludlow and other Committee members. Assuming that that is not the case, I ask hon. Members to withdraw all three amendments.

Peter Pike: Only one amendment has been moved.

Yvette Cooper: In that case, I ask for that amendment to be withdrawn.

Sydney Chapman: We are all grateful to the Under-Secretary, who has been extremely helpful in explaining clauses 94 and 102. The debate has been complicated by the fact that clause 94 deals with interim management orders, and clause 102 with final management orders.
 Earlier, I was addressing my remarks entirely to clause 94 and to my hon. Friends' amendment No. 322. My arguments were predicated on the assumption that the landlord is entitled to receive rent or income from the property. That being the case, I believe that clause 94 gives carte blanche to the local housing 
 authority—the local authority—to charge more or less what it wants and get away with it. I accept that many landlords can take care of themselves; they know the law and they can challenge a local housing authority. However, I am thinking of the vulnerable landlords, perhaps elderly widows, who desperately need income and depend upon income from a property. 
 It would help me if clause 94 explicitly said that the local housing authority could not charge to the owner or the landlord moneys that it has not paid for in the expenditure involved. Clause 102(4)(b) refers to 
''an estimate of the capital and other expenditure to be incurred''. 
Let us say that to put a project right costs £5,000, the builder will do the work and there will be interim payments. The housing authority should not be able to charge the £5,000 against the landlord until the authority has paid the money. I am not a lawyer, so I defer to anybody who can put me right, but as I read clause 94 it gives the power to the local housing authority to charge money upfront against the account of the landlord before it has paid it out. 
 Secondly, I want to take up a point that was first raised by the hon. Member for Ludlow about administrative charges. Those charges can be considerable and they will be considerable. I am aware of what a crossover usually costs. The builder puts an estimate of £900 to the owner, and the local authority charges £1,500 or £1,7000 to do the work itself. It can probably justify such action in a county court. It can say that Joe Bloggs, the borough engineer, had to look into the matter personally, that his time worked out at £200 an hour and that he spent three hours doing the work. Those costs are appalling to someone on a modest income, so safeguards should be written into the Bill for such a situation. Will the Under-Secretary consider that point? Perhaps we can revisit the matter on Report because this clause is important. 
 I shall finish my remarks with an extraneous point. I do not know the housing law as well as I should do, but my understanding is that, if someone receives housing benefit, the local housing authority pays the benefit not to the landlord but to the tenant and it is the tenant's responsibility to pay the rent to the landlord. Whether that is fair is a matter of debate but, if the Bill becomes law, will the local housing authority—that is, the local authority—have the power just to pay itself directly instead of the tenant who might receive housing benefit, so that it does not pass through the local authority? I do not expect an answer to that question now, unless the Under-Secretary can so respond. That important political point might suddenly explode in the Government's face if the provision becomes law. 
 The issue is sensitive. Of course there are bad landlords, just as there are errant tenants who do a moonlight flit. I have dealt with many constituency cases where it would have been better for the borough treasurer or the local authority to pay the housing benefit directly to the landlord and not to the tenant, who may not pass it on to the landlord. If we are to have a two-track system in which the housing authority can pay itself the housing benefit by way of 
 partly recovering some of the costs under an interim or final management order, we must examine how it will work.

John Hayes: It is always difficult to predict with accuracy how long different clauses will take to be debated in Committee, but the one that we are discussing now has stimulated an important debate. I am not yet convinced that the Under-Secretary has answered all the questions satisfactorily. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet was apposite in that respect. While the Under-Secretary's explanation of the arrangements that will be put in place at the beginning of a final management order satisfies to some extent my worries about the time scale for payments and other arrangements between the landlord and the authority, the same cannot reasonably be said of interim management orders, which may last for up to a year. I know that that would not typically be the case, but it could happen.
 We must bear in mind the uncertainties that prevail in connection with interim management orders about timetables for payments and estimates of the scale and size of payments. I hear what my hon. Friend and others said about that. We must also consider the nature of the charges that the local authority might apply. Mention has been made of the time that local authority officers will properly have to devote themselves to such matters. In one local authority, they may be dealt with by a middle-ranking or even junior officer while, in another case, as my hon. Friend suggests, they may be dealt with by senior member of the authority, which will have a different implication for the total costs that are levied on the landlord. 
 I am uncertain about the rate of interest. The Under-Secretary made it clear that it may, for example, be the rate of interest that applied to the local authority's own investments, but she will know that the rates vary enormously from one authority to another, depending on how shrewd authorities are at making such investments. There are great uncertainties in this part of the Bill. I had not fully appreciated how much debate would be stimulated when my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire rose to support my amendments. I was anxious to get greater clarity, and although the Under-Secretary has been helpful and courteous in dealing fully with the debate, I am not sure whether that clarity has emerged. 
 What emerged was quite a revelation to me. The Committee is bound to draw an extraordinary conclusion from the fact that someone who is not a fit and proper person has only to use a management company to continue, in effect, to be a landlord. The Under-Secretary said that not only would someone who was not a fit and proper person be able to continue to draw a rent if the local authority were managing their property, but almost anybody could manage it, regardless of whether they were a fit and proper person, and continue to live off the rents. That makes some of our earlier debates about the definition of a fit and proper person—someone is deemed not to be fit and proper if they have been prosecuted under the Bill or other housing legislation—rather 
 superfluous, to use a word that has been used once already. I know that the Under-Secretary is fond of superfluous things, because she said so earlier. 
 In addition, there are real worries about the differences between the provisions for interim management orders and the inconsistencies with the provisions applying to final management orders and other kinds of licensing. I am surprised at those inconsistencies and I hope that we will be able to deal with them during later discussions. I am sure that that will be raised when the Bill is considered in another place, and will be returned to on Report. However, it may be helpful if Government Front Benchers gave some commitment to clarify these matters in guidance to local authorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Poole has told me to speed up, but I shall give way because I do not want to be accused of being anything other than courteous.

Yvette Cooper: I shall briefly clarify the point before the hon. Gentleman concludes his remarks. First, the licensee always needs to be a fit and proper person, regardless of whether they are a managing agent, the local authority or the owner. There is no way that someone could get round the ''fit and proper'' test by finding a managing agent to hold the licence for them—they would still have to pass that test. Secondly, in response to the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet, let me say that the power has always existed for housing benefit to be paid directly to a landlord, whomsoever that might be, if, for example, a tenant were four weeks in arrears with rent.
 I should like to clarify my conclusions on each of the three amendments, because that may be relevant to the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. The amendment to the final management order section is unnecessary—because there are safeguards, the management scheme can be challenged. The amendment intended to prevent the payment of sums to several landlords as appropriate would be counter-productive and deny local authorities flexibility. I want to consider further the amendment that raises the timings of payments under interim management orders, and think about where there may be long IMOs in place. Where a short interim management order is in place for two weeks, or a month, for example, that would not be relevant. However, we want to look further at what would happen if one were in place for up to a year.

John Hayes: I note the order in which the Under-Secretary dealt with the amendments—she was right to do so, given the scale of their importance. Perhaps that is why we have emphasised one in particular. I hear what she says about considering the matter further, but I am still not completely convinced about the contradiction with clauses 92 and 93. I am anxious to pursue that further. Of course, it will be up to my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire, who moved the amendment, to decide whether to press the amendment to a vote. My advice, on balance, would be
 that we should not do so at this stage, given what the Minister has said, and there are other opportunities to explore these matters more fully.

Andrew Selous: We have had a useful debate on this group of amendments. I hope that the Government will ensure that the guidance to local authorities on the costs that they will incur and the timings of the net rent payments back to landlords are clear. I do not think that that is as clear as it could be in the Bill. It strikes me that the system whereby landlords must go to a tribunal to challenge anything that they perceive to be unfair is also slightly bureaucratic. Perhaps the use of the word ''reasonable'' in one or two more places and having some regard to the timings could have avoided that.
 We have managed to ventilate a number of the issues and thrown a little more light on them, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. 
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. 
 Amendments made: No. 62, in clause 94, page 65, line 31, leave out 'county court' and insert 'residential property tribunal'. 
 No. 63, in clause 94, page 65, line 36, leave out 'court's' and insert 'tribunal's'.—[Keith Hill.] 
 Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill. 
Several hon. Members rose—

Peter Pike: Order. I think we have had quite a lengthy debate on the clause, but I will allow a brief stand part debate. Before I call Sir Sydney, I must say that I know what the Committee wishes to do. If he does not think that he will finish by 5.30, I will suspend the Committee at about 5.15 for a short break. I hope that that guides the Committee as to what I am thinking.

Sydney Chapman: I apologise to the Committee, but this is an important point. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for her earlier reply, and for saying that the local authority has the right to pay the housing benefit directly to the private landlord in these cases. My experience is that they rarely do so, although I may be wrong on that. However, my real question is: will the Under-Secretary assure us—I ask not for reply now, but for reply in due course—that the local authority will not give the housing benefit directly back to itself and thus exclude the landlord from having a deserved part of it?
 I may not have explained that adequately, but what if there are a couple of tenants and the rent is £300 a week and instead of paying that to the landlord directly—or paying it to the tenant to pay to the landlord—the local authority keeps it and does not deny it as income to the landlord but uses it to pay for the necessary works? That is more than a technical point, and it is full of political charge in the sense that it can be very controversial. We may have to revisit it in due course, but I think that it is important and should be put on the record.

Yvette Cooper: Let me clarify. Under the circumstances in which the local authority has effectively become the managing agent, the rent is paid to the managing agent. Therefore, whether it is paid by a tenant who works and pays the rent, or by housing benefit, the money goes to the local authority. It can withhold the money for the repairs, if some are necessary, and it must then pass it on to the landlord. Therefore, the money does not go directly to the landlord who must then decide whether or not to pass it on to the local authority because it is managing the property. In the first instance, the rent goes to the local authority, because it is effectively collecting the rent on the landlord's behalf as it is managing the property through an interim management order. That is how the money will flow.
 The whole clause is based on the premise that the local authority will collect the rent and decide how much needs to be spent on the repairs and so on. Once they are done it will pass on the surplus income to the landlord. That is how it will work and that is the fair way for it to work in circumstances where the landlord has not proved to be a fit and proper person capable of managing the property.

John Hayes: I wonder why those provisions, and that sentiment, are not expressed in the Bill, when the opposite is detailed. The Bill details clearly what would happen to the residue money in one set of circumstances, but not in the other. If it is necessary to define it in one way, why is it not necessary to define it in the other?

Yvette Cooper: I do not understand the hon. Gentleman's intervention. The Bill clearly sets out that where the local authority is running an interim management order the rent will be paid to the local authority. However, it must pass on to the landlord any surplus rent once the cost of repairs and other things have been deducted. Therefore, the Bill sets out what should happen in those interim management order settlements.

John Hayes: I am sorry; I did not make myself sufficiently clear. The arrangements for those cases in which the costs that the local authority has taken on board are greater than the rent—in other words, there is debt owed by the landlord to the local authority—are not set out. It seems odd that at this point, and in the later clauses that deal with final management orders, one set of circumstances is clearly defined, but the other is left to be dealt with either through arrangements that take place in advance between the landlord and the local authority or through arrangements agreed when the order is made.

Yvette Cooper: I set out earlier exactly what the situation is when expenditure is greater than the rent that is incoming, and that follows from what is
 contained in the Bill. So as not to hold the Committee up, I shall write to the hon. Gentleman to explain why certain bits are included in the Bill and others are not.
 Question put and agreed to. 
 Clause 94, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. 
 Clauses 95 to 97 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 98 - Operation of final management orders

Amendments made: No. 64, in clause 98, page 68, line 24, leave out 'county court' and insert 'residential property tribunal'. 
 No. 65, in clause 98, page 68, line 42, leave out 'county court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
 No. 66, in clause 98, page 69, line 2, leave out 'the court' and insert 'a residential property tribunal'.—[Keith Hill.] 
 Clause 98, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. 
 Clause 99 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Peter Pike: I hope that the Committee has taken note of my comments a few moments ago. We have quite a lot more to get through than appears on the programming motion, so it is in the hands of the Committee as to whether Members come back after a short break.
 Clauses 100 to 105 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 6 - Management orders: procedure and appeals

Amendments made: No. 136, in schedule 6, page 171, line 41, leave out 'county court' and insert 'residential property tribunal'. 
 No. 137, in schedule 6, page 172, line 6, leave out 'by the court'. 
 No. 138, in schedule 6, page 172, leave out lines 18 to 25 and insert— 
 '(3) A residential property tribunal may allow an appeal to be made to it after the end of the period mentioned in sub-paragraph (2) if it is satisfied that there is a good reason for the failure to appeal before the end of that period (and for any delay since then in applying for permission to appeal out of time).'.
 No. 139, in schedule 6, page 172, line 27, after 'appeal', insert 
'to a residential property tribunal'.
 No. 140, in schedule 6, page 172, leave out line 33. 
 No. 141, in schedule 6, page 172, line 34, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
 No. 142, in schedule 6, page 172, line 36, leave out 'court's' and insert 'tribunal's'. 
 No. 143, in schedule 6, page 172, line 38, leave out 'court's' and insert 'tribunal's'. 
 No. 144, in schedule 6, page 172, line 40, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
 No. 145, in schedule 6, page 172, line 41, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
 No. 146, in schedule 6, page 172, line 43, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
 No. 147, in schedule 6, page 172, line 44, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
 No. 148, in schedule 6, page 172, line 45, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
 No. 149, in schedule 6, page 173, line 1, leave out 
'court revokes a final management order, the court' 
and insert 
'tribunal revokes a final management order, the tribunal'. 
No. 150, in schedule 6, page 173, line 3, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
 No. 151, in schedule 6, page 173, line 5, leave out 
'court revokes a final management order, the court' 
and insert 
'tribunal revokes a final management order, the tribunal'. 
No. 152, in schedule 6, page 173, line 7, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
 No. 153, in schedule 6, page 173, line 9, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
 No. 154, in schedule 6, page 173, line 20, leave out 'Court of Appeal' and insert 'Lands Tribunal'. 
 No. 155, in schedule 6, page 173, line 23, leave out 'Court of Appeal' and insert 'Lands Tribunal'. 
 No. 156, in schedule 6, page 173, line 32, leave out 'county court' and insert 'residential property tribunal'. 
 No. 157, in schedule 6, page 174, leave out lines 1 to 8 and insert— 
 '(3) A residential property tribunal may allow an appeal to be made to it after the end of the period mentioned in sub-paragraph (2) if it is satisfied that there is a good reason for the failure to appeal before the end of that period (and for any delay since then in applying for permission to appeal out of time).'.
 No. 158, in schedule 6, page 174, line 10, after 'appeal', insert 
'to a residential property tribunal'.
 No. 159, in schedule 6, page 174, line 15, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
 No. 160, in schedule 6, page 174, line 18, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
 No. 161, in schedule 6, page 174, line 32, leave out 'Court of Appeal' and insert 'Lands Tribunal'. 
 No. 162, in schedule 6, page 174, line 35, leave out 'Court of Appeal' and insert 'Lands Tribunal'.—[Keith Hill.] 
 Schedule 6, as amended, agreed to. 
 Clauses 106 and 107 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 108 - Effect of management orders: furniture

Amendments made: No. 67, in clause 108, page 77, line 7, leave out 'county court' and insert 'residential property tribunal'. 
 No. 68, in clause 108, page 77, line 9, leave out 'county court' and insert 'tribunal'.—[Keith Hill.]

Robert Syms: I beg to move amendment No. 328, in clause 108, page 77, line 15, after 'other', insert 'specified'.
 We need only a short debate on this matter. We wonder whether the ''articles'' 
 referred to in subsection (7) should be specified, as that might make life a little simpler and ''other articles'' is a very general phrase. I seek a little more than a yes or no answer; I do not want a long response.

Richard Younger-Ross: This is an essential amendment and we support it.

Yvette Cooper: It is unnecessary to add the word ''specified''. It would require the Government to go into considerable further detail about what that would mean. The objects supplied as part of a property being furnished are what should be covered. That will vary, depending on what was agreed for the occupants' use or enjoyment when the original lettings were made. As a guide, if something was in the inventory I suspect that there would be a presumption that it was intended for the occupants' ongoing use, and therefore it would be covered. I recognise that it is often desirable to have certainty, but in this case it is appropriate to have the flexibility that allows a common-sense approach to be taken rather than to require that there should always be specification in advance.

Robert Syms: I thank the Under-Secretary for that answer. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. 
 Clause 108, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. 
 Clauses 109 and 110 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 111 - Termination of management orders: leases, agreements and proceedings

Amendment made: No. 69, in clause 111, page 79, line 35, leave out 'the county court' and insert 'a residential property tribunal'.—[Keith Hill.] 
 Clause 111, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. 
 Clause 112 ordered to stand part of the Bill. 
 Clauses 113 and 114 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 115 - Requirement as to overcrowding generally

Sally Keeble: I beg to move amendment No. 225, in
clause 115, page 81, line 44, leave out '12' and insert '10'.

Peter Pike: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 333, in clause 116, page 82, line 16, leave out '12' and insert '10'.

Sally Keeble: Amendment No 225 would tighten the standards for gender segregation and it addresses my overall concern—and that of several colleagues—about overcrowding. It is a probing amendment: I
 hope that the Government will offer their own amendment at a later stage. If the approach taken is that overcrowding standards are best not set out in the Bill—it would be completely wrong to set them out there—and should be done through secondary legislation, then those standards should be taken up at the same time. That way, there can be some read-across between the historical position for HMOs and that for general housing overcrowding, which we all know is awful.
 The overcrowding regulations, as I am sure hon. Members know, are made up of several different standards—space, room size, and gender segregation standards. It has been widely accepted that those are out of date. The regulations for general overcrowding specify that two people of different sexes should not have to sleep in one room unless they are a married or cohabiting couple, or unless they are under 10 years old. There is a 10-year age cut-off for mixing genders in a single bedroom. I find it odd that the clause says that children aged 12 should be disregarded. There are two issues involved. 
 First, an age limit of 12 seems far too high, given that we have a very high teenage pregnancy rate, and that girls now reach puberty younger than they did when the regulations were first drawn up. By any standards, to expect a girl of 11 going on 12—or perhaps indeed a boy, because it is only one person who is disregarded under 12—to share a room with a man of any age is not in line with modern notions of privacy and decency, and that does not encourage children and young people to have a regard for their own privacy and that of others. 
 Things might have been different when the regulations were drawn up, but we have moved on in our understanding of what is appropriate. We have had to confront some difficult problems in terms of the way we treat children and young children, and our standards should move with the times. One reason why I think it wrong for such provisions to be in the Bill is that it means we will get into exactly the position that we face on the general overcrowding standards, which is that we will have to wait for an opportunity to come along in primary legislation to change things. It has taken 70 years to even think about upgrading the general overcrowding standards. To leave the standards that we are talking about for another 70 years would be completely inappropriate; the matter should be dealt with in secondary legislation. 
 Secondly, last week, some of us spoke at length about the vulnerability of people living in HMOs. There was much discussion about fire risks and the number of deaths. There are many proposals in the Bill on ways to make the HMOs safer. My view is that although many HMOs are unsound because they are old, because of the way that they have been adapted, and for a number of other reasons, one of the real problems is that it is not the buildings that are vulnerable; it is the people in them. They might have only just stopped being homeless, and might have been out on the streets; they might have alcohol-related or other substance abuse issues; they might have mental health problems; they might be very old or very young. 
 Given the main difficulties with that type of tenure, we should be looking to provide good safeguards, not just for the building itself, but for the people in it. It would generally be accepted that however safe we make the building, if we put too many people in it, particularly people who have personal difficulties and problems, we will end up with difficulties. I assume that the regulations apply also to areas where there is selective licensing. I remind the Minister of what some of those areas are like. They are used for people who have been evicted from council housing for antisocial behaviour reasons. Because they cannot get any other form of housing, they are forced into the most marginal private sector housing—which we often talk about—because they cannot get any other form of housing. 
 We could talk about what is happening to families in some of the ex-pit villages, who are living in housing bought from the National Coal Board by several landlords, whom I will not name, with swathes of houses across the midlands. We would not want to increase the risks and pressures on those families by making the standards in which they are living worse than the general standards. I would be interested to hear why there is a discrepancy between the age of 12 in the clause and the age of 10 regarding general overcrowding, and how that can be dealt with and improved.

John Hayes: I shall be brief. I broadly agree with the hon. Lady—her case is persuasive. We had a brief discussion around these subjects last week. She is right in saying that things have changed, not least because young people mature much more quickly than they once did. Although there is a lot of evidence to support that, with which I am sure the hon. Lady is familiar, I shall not bore the Committee with it. For that reason alone, there is an argument for this amendment. There is, however, a counter-argument, which is that if the amendment were agreed, it would be more difficult for people to get a house if they were on its margins, as it were, than they would if it were not agreed. There may be homeless people who would be glad to have a house and would happy to live with the standards in the Bill. However, although that argument can be made, on balance I do not think that it is as persuasive as the case made by the hon. Lady.
 The hon. Lady's second argument was about a people-centred approach to evaluating these matters. That approach is at the heart of part 1 of the Bill, which is a point that she did not make, but on which she might reflect. The Under-Secretary described that approach as a fundamental shift, in terms of a rating system, from one that was essentially about measuring hazard and risk in buildings to a system that measured the hazard and risk of the combination of buildings and various types of occupants—including the vulnerability of people that the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) described—and how that interacts with their living conditions. Those factors are essential to the earlier parts of the Bill. We should remember that the amendment is entirely 
 consistent with the change in Government thinking and is, on that basis, plausible. I offer my support to the hon. Lady.

Matthew Green: I welcome the hon. Lady's amendment, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) and I added our names. My hon. Friend tabled amendment No. 333 on clause 116, which would effectively deal with the situation as if new residents were coming into the property, thus bringing it into line. I am sure that the hon. Lady would agree that that is needed. I share her sentiments entirely. This should not be included in the Bill. It is exactly the sort of thing that is best dealt with in secondary legislation, not least because the standards can be increased over time, thereby allowing further improvements and a reduction in overcrowding. That would be better than embedding the provision in legislation. The last time somebody got round to doing this was 1935—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady may say that was sometime in the 1950s, but whenever it was, it was a long time ago and I suspect that it will be a long time before it is dealt with again.

Robert Syms: When we are in office.

Matthew Green: I suspect that it will not be that long. Do not tempt me down that route. We want to get this done.
 The point has been made. Although I do not have the source of the data to hand, I understand that since the war the average age of the onset of puberty has dropped by two years for both boys and girls, and that girls now reach puberty at around 11. If that is so, the majority of girls under 12 would be able to become pregnant and it would not be suitable for them to sleep in a room with an adult male, as they could under the current regulations. For many reasons, not least diet, young people have changed since the war. The age of 10 has a conservative value because it is not uncommon now for girls to reach puberty at nine. I hope that the Minister will accept the amendments, but I would rather that he would do exactly what the hon. Member for Northampton, North suggested, which is to say the Government will table a set of amendments on Report that would remove the provision from the Bill and put it into secondary legislation.

Keith Hill: I am grateful to my colleagues for their brevity. I want to provide a proper answer to such a serious issue and to be as quick in doing so as I reasonably can be. All those who have taken part in the debate have made valid points. In our earlier debate and on the basis of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck), which was supported by many members of the Committee, I made it clear that the Government take the issue of overcrowding very seriously. As I said, I recognise the concerns of members of the Committee. I undertook to consider whether it is possible to devise an approach that allows some incremental improvement in statutory
 overcrowding standards over a period. I give the Committee an assurance that I am pursuing such matters and hope to return to the issue on Report. I confess that I had hoped to return to it during our proceedings, but that will not be possible.
 I turn to the amendments Nos. 225 and 333 and to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North. As the Committee knows, overcrowding in the private rented sector is a particular problem. Approximately 14,000 households in the private rented sector in England are statutorily overcrowded under part X of the Housing Act 1985, to which I shall return shortly. My hon. Friend rightly said that houses in multiple occupation are more prone, by their very nature, to being overcrowded than other forms of housing. The provision for licensing HMOs will therefore help to stamp out such a practice, since it is a fundamental condition of the licence that an HMO may be licensed only for a maximum number of people and then only if it has suitable amenities and facilities for that number. A condition of the licence can impose the maximum number of persons who may occupy individual rooms in a house. If the licence holder permits the house, or part of it, to be occupied by more persons than for which it is licensed, he or she will commit a criminal offence and be liable to a fine of £20,000. The Government believe that, through the licensing system that we are bringing into force, overcrowding in many HMOs will be significantly reduced. 
 While licensing will help to eliminate overcrowding in large HMOs and those that are subject to a local authority additional licensing scheme, my hon. Friend was absolutely right to say that many smaller HMOs will not be subject to licensing, such as two-storey houses and flats in multiple occupation. They are covered by clauses 113 to 118, which have been taken from part XI of the Housing Act 1985. They have been reproduced—passported—into the Bill, because part XI will be repealed. The provisions give powers to local authorities to ensure that occupants of non-licensed HMOs are protected from having to live in overcrowded conditions. 
 My hon. Friend's amendment No. 225 to clause 115 and the Liberal Democrat amendment No. 333 to clause 116 would require a local authority, in determining the number of occupants per room in an HMO, to disregard children under the age of 10 from that calculation.

Sally Keeble: No, I am sorry. That is wrong. That would not be the effect of my amendment. It is different from my right hon. Friend's explanation, which is why I am so puzzled. It deals specifically with gender segregation, not the number of people in a room. There can be the same number of people in a room provided that they are all men or all women.

Keith Hill: I am responding, unless I have got it wrong, to amendment No. 225, which says:
''leave out '12' and insert '10'.'' 
I naturally assumed that we were talking about age rather than gender segregation.

Sally Keeble: No. We are talking about clause 115, which refers to:
''permitting persons to occupy...sleeping accommodation in such number that it is not possible to avoid persons of opposites sexes who are not living together as husband and wife sleeping in the same room.'' 
For the purposes of that section 
''children under the age or 12 are to be disregarded''. 
That specifically relates to it not being possible to avoid persons of opposite sexes, so highlights the gender segregation issue.

Keith Hill: I apologise to my hon. Friend.

Sally Keeble: That is why we have been going on about puberty.

Keith Hill: I understand that. There is certainly much discussion of puberty, and I recognise the importance of that factor. I had been thinking in the context of age rather than gender. The Committee will have to forgive me for that misunderstanding. We are, however, coming at the issue from similar angles. We all want to deal with overcrowding, which is an undesirable phenomenon.
 I know that there were concerns on Second Reading that there might have been a mistake, or that the Government were worsening conditions—my hon. Friend made that point. That is not the case, and I return to the issue of age limit contained in clause 115, which is not new. It was introduced in the Housing Repairs and Rent Act 1954 and repeated in the Housing Act 1985. As Committee members know—the hon. Member for Ludlow referred to this—the provisions in part 10 of the Housing Act 1985 set out a rigid frame dating from 1935 for determining overcrowding. Those apply to all properties, including HMOs. So, if the question were whether the room in the HMO was statutorily overcrowded, those part 10 provisions would apply. 
 It be might be useful if I explain that the statutory mandatory overcrowding provisions in part 10 of the 1985 Act apply to all residential dwellings, including those in owner occupation and rented in the private sector. They impose a duty not just on landlords, but on any person occupying a dwelling to prevent overcrowding. Basically, an offence is committed if a dwelling is overcrowded because it fails to meet the room standard in section 325, the space standard in section 326, or both. The room standard in section 325 provides that a room is overcrowded if more than two persons of the opposite sex who are not partners are required to sleep in the same room. Children under the age of 10 are disregarded for that purpose.

Sally Keeble: The odd thing is that the gender segregation for HMOs in the Bill is worse than that described in the standards that the Minister has just read out. The Minister has said that children under 10 are disregarded, but the Bill is worse than that. Personally, I think that the whole lot is nonsense, but I cannot see the reason for one being lower than the other. I recognise that things may not worsen, but the situation is certainly inequitable.

Keith Hill: I understand absolutely, and I have a great deal of sympathy for my hon. Friend's point of view. We are coming to the same conclusion, although from different directions. We are talking about the effect of having a higher age or cut-off point for one case than for another. I understand all the arguments about the inappropriateness of children at one age being permitted, while children at another age are not.
 The space standard in section 326 provides that a dwelling is overcrowded if more persons than are prescribed in the section are required to sleep in rooms that are smaller than prescribed in the section or the number of occupants of the room exceed the number permitted to sleep in the room. 
 As overcrowding is a particular problem in HMOs, Part XI of the 1985 Act provides additional protection against overcrowding for HMO occupants. The HMO overcrowding provisions are less prescriptive and allow local authorities to take action to prevent overcrowding if, in their opinion, there is or would be an excessive number of occupants. The proposed powers are much more flexible than the mandatory standards.

Peter Pike: Order. We have not yet moved on to discuss the new clause on overcrowding. We are discussing two tight amendments, both of which propose to
''leave out '12' and insert '10'''.
 One of them has been moved and the other is being debated with it. I am aware of the time, and I know that the Committee does not want to adjourn and return after a break, so I cannot let the Minister speak on overcrowding now and do so again when—in a few minutes, I hope—we debate the new clause.

Keith Hill: I understand that, and before your timely intervention, Mr. Pike, I was going to say that I agree that the different age standards are odd.
 Parts X and XI of the 1985 Act are used in different ways. One of them is mandatory with very detailed requirements, and the other provides wider discretionary powers that can be used in a number of ways and which apply only to a certain category of housing that is prone to overcrowding—HMOs. I do not propose to defend either of the age criteria, but accepting my hon. Friend's amendment would not bring parity between those two systems, which serve fundamentally different purposes. 
 I would be happy to consider detailed provisions relating to HMOs alongside my consideration of the universal overcrowding standards in part X. I will return to the issue on Report. It is on that basis—having finally got here by circuitous routes—that I ask my hon. Friend to withdraw the amendment.

Sally Keeble: I will do so on the basis that we shall return to the matter on Report. When I tabled the amendment, I had a sneaky feeling that there would be a piece of legislation somewhere that applies differently to HMOs than to general housing. It would be helpful to have a detailed note from the Minister's Department setting out what the different bits of legislation are so we can see how everything works,
 and so we can understand what all the implications are when we return to the matter on Report. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. 
 Clause 115 ordered to stand part of the Bill. 
 Clause 116 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 117 - Appeals against overcrowding notices

Amendments made: No. 70, in 
clause 117, page 82, line 22, leave out 'county court' and insert 'residential property tribunal'. 
No. 71, in 
clause 117, page 82, leave out line 28. 
No. 72, in 
clause 117, page 82, line 29, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
No. 73, in 
clause 117, page 82, line 32, leave out 'Court of Appeal' and insert 'Lands Tribunal'. 
No. 74, in 
clause 117, page 82, line 34, leave out 'Court of Appeal' and insert 'Lands Tribunal'.—[Keith Hill.] 
 Clause 117, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 118 - Revocation and variation of overcrowding notices

Amendments made: No. 75, in 
clause 118, page 83, line 4, leave out 
 'county court if— (a) the local housing authority' 
 and insert 
 'residential property tribunal if the local housing authority— (a)'. 
No. 76, in 
clause 118, page 83, line 12, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'.—[Keith Hill.] 
 Clause 118, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 119 - Index of defined expressions: Part 4

Amendment made: No. 77, in 
clause 119, page 84, line 6, at end insert— 
 'Residential property tribunal Section (Residential property tribunals)'. 
 —[Keith Hill.] 
 Clause 119, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause 18A - Overcrowding

'(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend sections 324 to 326 and 328 (Part X) of the Housing Act 1985. 
 (2) The Secretary of State may not make any regulations under this section unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before, and approved by a Resolution of, each House of Parliament.'.—[Ms Keeble.] 
 Brought up, and read the First time.

Sally Keeble: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
 I am pleased to be able to move the new clause at long last. I hope that if my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning is not able to accept it—I do not expect him to be able at this stage—that he will give an undertaking to come back on Report. I do not intend to go back into all the overcrowding issues because the new clause proposes a method for dealing with the problem, not the solution, in terms of a new set of standards. It is important that that is understood. One reason why the whole overcrowding debate became so problematic was because of what was on the face of legislation, which could be changed only by primary legislation. Time after time, the opportunity has been missed. Things has got to the point where it will be impossible to upgrade all the standards in one fell swoop because they are so far adrift from what most people recognise as being reasonable. I know that local authorities are concerned about the implications of that. It will take careful discussion, not just one go, to reach desirable standards, and they will have to be ratcheted up over time. To do that, it is very important to have a more accessible procedure, and one that can be more easily adapted to changing circumstances and views, than to have everything in primary legislation. Recognition of the time constraints involved and of how difficult it can be to get practical agreement on the best way to proceed is what we need to deal with overcrowding. 
 Regarding the kind of changes that could be made, there has a been a long debate about the standards that people might want. For example, if kitchens were excluded, if they did not have to be counted as bedrooms, that would be a huge improvement for some families. Families with more than two children should be entitled to a living room. Being mischievous for a moment, I think that the National Asylum Support Service allows asylum seekers to have accommodation with a living room. In this day and age, it should be accepted that families have some living space as a general requirement. 
 There is the issue of when children are counted in or out. Our previous debate about gender segregation highlighted some of the difficulties and complexities. There is an issue about husbands and wives being allowed to sleep together, instead of having to be separated—if that is what is required—to meet the rules on gender segregation, which I have seen in some homes. There is an issue of the rule about children being counted only once they reach their first birthday, partly because children in 1935 used not to have all the paraphernalia that they have now. Everyone who has 
 a child knows about the carry cots and the rest of it. It also probably has something to do with higher infant mortality rates in 1935. There has been such a change that we really have to look at all the issues very carefully. That is my wish list. 
 Any changes have to be properly worked out and consulted on. At this stage, the most important thing is to create a process that can lead to a deliverable conclusion, that does not raise false hopes among people, that does not frighten local authorities half to death, and that will improve living standards for families. Essentially this is a problem of families and of children. They, not single people, are the ones who are overcrowded. The fact that it has been so difficult to get improvements in the last 70 years means that we need to consider a different approach, and take the provisions out of primary legislation. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will think about bringing back some proposals on Report to take things in that direction.

John Hayes: I shall speak in support of the hon. Lady for less than a minute because of the time pressures that the Committee is under. My hon. Friend the Member for Poole will time me.
 The hon. Lady's point is important. We had a long debate on it at the very beginning of our Committee's considerations; I think that the very first amendment, which was moved by the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North, was on the issue. The issue is important because the relationship between overcrowding and a range of other problems is profound. I mentioned in that debate that there is a proven relationship between overcrowding and ill health, for example, and that view is endorsed empirically by a number of sources. 
 It is quite unacceptable that we allow overcrowding to increase. It is growing in certain parts of the country, and certainly in our cities. Other hon. Members have spoken about that; I think particularly of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King), who has a real problem with overcrowding in her constituency, which interestingly and worryingly is growing, as she tells us when she speaks on those matters. That is not appropriate in a civilised society. All who value a society dedicated to improving standards for all its citizens and eliminating the problems that the hon. Member for Northampton, North described, about which I care just as passionately, have a responsibility to do all that we can to advance the interests of the most vulnerable of our fellow countrymen. To that end, I am delighted to offer my party's support for the hon. Lady's new clause.

Matthew Green: As I said about the previous amendments, we, too, support the new clause's approach to dealing with the issue, and hope that the Minister will see fit to deal with the matter on Report, as he has already suggested he might.

Keith Hill: We all have strong feelings about overcrowding. The problem is one that I confront regularly with my constituents—mine is an inner-London constituency—and we would all like to resolve the issue. However, we must be clear that resolving the issue has significant resource implications, and implications for local authorities that have competing priorities, not least in relation to programmes of which we all approve, such as those trying to tackle homeless and deal with the decent homes issue.
 Nevertheless, I know exactly where my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North is coming from, and I think that the Committee know where I am trying to arrive. In the light of my earlier undertakings on the issue, made on two separate occasions, I very much hope that my hon. Friend will withdraw her new clause.

Sally Keeble: I understand the difficulty of doing something about the issue. When I first became a councillor in 1986, the issue was one of the first that I ran up against. It was clear then that it was a difficult problem to resolve. I remember trying to get the issue through the Association of London Authorities when I was council leader. It was impossible because the local authority could not deal with it. The rules were so out of kilter with modern standards that the financial burden of trying to catch up was too great. I recognise the problems; there must be careful thinking about how the issue can be dealt with. Even just the exclusion of kitchens would affect about 15,000 units nationally. That would be manageable.
 We must deal with the problem, which affects not only big families. One issue that arises repeatedly in Northampton is that of the young couple who have a council flat. They have one baby, then another. The next thing, they have three children, and they have a one-bedroom flat and cannot get out. They think that the problem is the council being unreasonable, and do not realise that the problem is what the law says. In fact, it is in our hands to make the changes. There has consistently been a problem and we need to find a way forward.

Karen Buck: The Minister rightly speaks about the importance of tackling homelessness, the fact that we do not have unlimited resources and the need to be clear about priorities. Does my hon. Friend agree that part of our worry is that, in tackling the problem of homelessness, we have helped to exacerbate the problem of overcrowding? We are trying under the new clause not to get into the repeated situation when, in tackling one serious social problem, we inadvertently and with good intention create another genuine problem, and sometimes one that is even worse than others in the same area.

Sally Keeble: I agree, and that is why the problem must be dealt with by secondary legislation. At the same time as setting standards, we must consider how
 to manage the prioritisation of people with housing needs because they are overcrowded, not because they are homeless. Such factors have to be taken carefully into account. I see the new clause as a start towards enabling larger families to live in a reasonable degree of decent housing and letting young couples give their 
 families a decent start in life. I look forward to hearing what my right hon. Friend will have to say on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
 Motion, and clause, by leave, withdrawn. 
 Further consideration adjourned.—[Paul Clark.] 
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes to Six o'clock till Thursday 5 February at ten minutes past Nine o'clock.